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HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS: 



OR, 



gambles, unh Jtocfttents 



IN SEARCH OF 



ALPINE PLANTS. 



REV. HUGH M ACM ILL AN, 

AUTHOR OF "BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE," ETC. 



JTontow : 
MACMILLAN AND CO. 

1869. 



LONDON : 

R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, 

BREAD STREET HILL. 






PREFACE. 



The following chapters may be regarded as 
popular studies in geographical botany. Although 
each is separate and distinct, they have all a 
common basis and bond of unity. Their aim is to 
impart a general idea of the origin, character, and 
distribution of those rare and beautiful Alpine 
plants which occur on the British hills, and which 
are found almost everywhere in Europe, Asia, 
Africa, and America, wherever there are mountain 
chains sufficiently lofty to furnish them with a 
suitable climate. In the first three chapters, the 
peculiar vegetation of the Highland mountains 
is fully described ; while in the remaining chapters 
this vegetation is traced to its northern cradle in 
the mountains of Norway, and to its southern 
European termination in the Alps of Switzerland. 
All the excursions mentioned were made during 
intervals of relaxation from professional work 



PREFACE. 



extending over several summers. Instead of con- 
veying the information I have to give regarding 
the plants gathered on these occasions, in technical 
language, in a formal treatise, I thought it better 
that it should appear in a setting of personal 
adventure, and be associated with descriptions of 
the natural scenery and the peculiarities of the 
human life in the midst of which the plants were 
found. By this method of treatment the subject 
will perhaps be made more interesting to a larger 
circle of readers. 

H. M. 
Glasgow, 

June i, 1869. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 
THE PLANTS ON THE SUMMITS OF THE HIGHLAND MOUN- 
TAINS . . . . I 



CHAPTER IT. 

THE INTERMEDIATE OR HEATHER REGION ...... 76 

CHAPTER III. 

A GARDEN WALL IN A HIGHLAND GLEN . . . . . . 112 

CHAPTER IV. 

A RAMBLE THROUGH NORWAY, THE CRADLE OF THE HIGH- 
LAND FLORA I44 

CHAPTER V. 

THE SKJEGGEDAL-FOSS IN NORWAY 226 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE PASS AND HOSPICE OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD . . 256 



HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PLANTS ON THE SUMMITS OF THE 
HIGHLAND MOUNTAINS. 

A THOUGHTFUL man, standing beneath the silent 
magnificence of the midnight heavens, is more 
deeply impressed by what is suggested than by 
what is revealed. He cannot gaze upon the soli- 
tary splendour of Sirius, or the clustered glories of 
Orion, without a vague unuttered wish to know 
whether these orbs are inhabited, and what are the 
nature and conditions of existence there. A similar 
feeling of curiosity seizes us when we behold afar 
off the summits of a lofty range of mountains, 
lying along the golden west like the shores of 
another and a brighter world. Elevated far above 
the busy commonplace haunts of men, rearing 
their mystic heads into the clouds, they seem to 
claim affinity with the heavens, and, like the stars, 
to dwell apart, retiring into a more awful and 
sacred solitude than exists on the surface of the 
earth. We long for the wings of the eagle, to 

B 



2 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

surmount in a moment all intervening obstacles, 
and reach the shores of that upper world, that we 
may know what strange arrangements of matter, 
what new forms of life, occur in a region so near 
to and so favoured of the skies. To many indi- 
viduals destitute of the strength of limb and sound- 
ness of lung necessary to climb the mountain side, 
or chained hopelessly to the monotonous employ- 
ments by which the daily bread is earned, this 
must ever be an unattainable enjoyment — in sight, 
and yet unknown. Even of the thousands of 
tourists who as duly as the autumn comes round 
swarm over the familiar Highland routes, very 
few turn aside to behold this great sight. Only a 
solitary adventurous pedestrian, smitten with the 
love of science, now and then cares to diverge from 
the beaten paths, from the region of coaches and 
extortionate hotel-keepers, to explore the primeval 
solitudes of the higher hills. For these and other 
reasons, a brief description of the characteristic 
vegetation of the Highland mountains may prove 
interesting and instructive to many. The infor- 
mation I have to lay before the reader has been 
acquired with much toil during many summer 
wanderings ; but if it should be the means of 
opening up to any one the way to a new field 
of research and a new set of sensations, it will 
be the source of much satisfaction to me. 

Mountains exercise a peculiar and powerful 
fascination over the imagination. They transport 
us out of the fictitious atmosphere of civilization, 



L] the poetry of mountains. 3 

and the cramping air of the world of taskwork, 
into the region of poetry and freedom. Among 
their serene and quiet retreats, the fevered, con- 
ventional life, brought face to face with the purity 
and the calm of nature, reverts to its primitive 
simplicity, the mind recovers its original elasticity, 
and the heart glows with its native warmth. Every 
individual finds in them something to admire, and 
to suit the tendencies of his mind. To the patriot, 
they are the monuments of history, which have 
attracted to themselves, by kindred sympathy, 
some of the most remarkable events that have 
diversified the life of nations — guardians of liberty, 
whose high, embattled ridges form an impene- 
trable rampart against the invading foe, and 
nourish within their fastnesses a hardy race, free 
as their own wild w 7 inds. To the poet, they are 
the altars of nature, on which the golden-robed sun 
offers his morning and evening sacrifice — footstools 
of God, before which his soul kneels, hushed in 
awe and reverence. To the philosopher, they are 
the theatres in which the mightiest forces of nature 
are seen in intensest action, — the storehouses in 
w T hich are treasured up all the sources of earth's 
beauty and fertility. While to the devotional mind 
they are types of the stability of the Christian 
promises, — emblems of the Infinite, the Eternal, 
and the Unchangeable. 

The fascination which mountains exercise ex- 
tends to all that is connected with them. Their 
own sublimity and grandeur are reflected, as it 

B 2 



4 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

were, upon all their productions ; and the low- 
liest object that hides under their shadow, or is 
nourished by their soil, acquires from that circum- 
stance an importance which does not intrinsically 
belong to it. Hence the peculiar charm which all 
botanists find in the pursuit of Alpine botany. 
The plants which grow upon the rugged sides, and 
the bleak storm-scalped summits of the mountains, 
cannot generally be compared, in point of variety 
and beauty of colouring, and luxuriance of growth, 
with the flowers of the plains. They are, for the 
most part, tiny plants, that, among their leaves of 
light, have no need of flowers— harmonizing in all 
their characters with their dreary habitats, and 
claiming apparently a closer affinity to the grey 
lichens and the brown mosses among which they 
nestle, than to their bright sisters of the valleys. 
But by their comparative rarity, by the magni- 
ficent and almost boundless prospects obtained 
from their elevated haunts, and by the exhi- 
larating nature of the mountain breezes and 
scenery, they are surrounded by a halo of inte- 
rest far exceeding that connected with woodland 
flowers ; and a glowing enthusiasm is felt in their 
collection which cannot be experienced in the 
tamer and less adventurous pursuit of lowland 
botany. 

The Highland mountains occupy but a very 
subsidiary position among the great mountain 
ranges of the earth. The highest peak in which 
they culminate does not reach the line of perpetual 



I.] CHARACTER OF HIGHLAND MOUNTAINS. 5 

snow ; no avalanche thunders over their precipices 
to bury the villages at their base in ruins ; no 
glacier brings eternal winter down from his elevated 
throne into the midst of green corn-fields and culti- 
vated valleys, or yawns in dangerous crevasses 
across the traveller's path ; and no volcano reddens 
the horizon with its lurid smoke and flame. Ages 
innumerable have passed away since the glacier 
flowed down their sides, and left its polished or 
striated marks on the rocks, to be deciphered by 
the skill of the geologist; and those hills which 
once passed through a fiery ordeal, and poured 
their volcanic floods over the surrounding districts, 
now form the firmest foundations of the land, and 
afford quiet, grassy pasturages for the sheep. Our 
mountains, indeed, possess few or none of those 
sublime attributes which invest the lofty ranges of 
other lands with gloom and terror. Their very 
storms are usually subdued, as if in harmony with 
their humbler forms. Though they tower to the 
sky, they seem nearer to the familiar earth ; and 
a large share of the beauty and verdure of the 
plains do they lift up with them in their rugged 
arms for the blessing of heaven. Every part of 
their domains is free and open to the active foot 
of the wanderer ; there are few or no inaccessible 
precipices or profound abysses to form barriers in 
his way; he can plant his foot on their highest 
summits with little expenditure of breath and toil ; 
and a few hours will bring him from the stir and 
tumult of life in the heart of the populous city to 



6 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

their loneliest and wildest recesses. Well do I 
love my native hills ; for I have spent some of the 
happiest days of my life ki wandering amid their 
solitudes, following my fancies fearlessly wherever 
they led me. I have seen them in all seasons, and 
in. all their varied, aspects : — in the dim dawn, 
when, swathed in cold dark clouds, they seemed 
like " awful countenances veiled,'' yet speaking in 
the tongues of a hundred unseen waterfalls ; in 
the still noon-day, when, illumined with sunshine, 
every cliff and scar on their sides stood out dis- 
tinctly and prominently against the pure clear 
sky ; at sunset, when, amid the masses of bur- 
nished gold that lay piled up in the west — " the 
glow of fire that burns without consuming " — they 
seemed ;like the embers of a universal conflagra- 
tion ; in the holy twilight, when they appeared to 
melt into the purple beauty of a dream, and the 
golden summer moon and the soft bright star of 
eve rose solemnly over their brows, lighting them 
up with a mystical radiance ; and in the lone dark 
waste of midnight, when from lake and river the 
long trailing mists crept up their sides without 
hiding their far-off summits, on which twinkled, 
like earth-lighted watch-fires, a few uncertain stars. 
I have gazed upon them in the beauty of summer, 
when the heather was in full bloom, and for miles 
they glowed in masses of the loveliest purple ; in 
the changing splendour of autumn, when the deep 
green of the herbage gave place to the russet hues 
of the fading flowers, the rich orange of the ferns, 



i.] EARL Y EXPLORA TION. 7 

and the dark brown of the mosses ; and in the 
dreary depth of winter, when storms during the 
whole twilight-day howled around them, or when, 
robed from foot to crown in a garment of the 
purest snow, they seemed meet approaches to " the 
great white Throne." In all these aspects they 
were beautiful, and in all they excited thoughts 
and emotions which no human language could 
adequately express. 

•Offering such facilities for search, it is not 
surprising that the vegetable productions of the 
British mountains should have been thoroughly 
investigated. Long before Botany became orga- 
nized as a distinct science, our alpine flora attracted 
a large share of the attention of scientific men. 
In the days of Linnaeus — stimulated by the en- 
thusiastic impulse communicated by that remark- 
able man to every department of physical research 
— a band of devoted botanists undertook the 
exploration of the Highland mountains ; a task by 
no means so easy then as in this age of steam- 
boats and railroads. The whole of the northern 
districts encircled by the mighty ramparts of the 
Grampian range was a terra incognita — virtually 
almost as remote from the civilized regions beyond 
as the wilds of Labrador. There were no roads, 
no conveyances, or other means of communication 
with the south. The adventurous men who first 
opened up this wild territory to the researches 
of science were peculiarly adapted for the task 
of practical scientific pioneers. Endowed with 



8 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

vigorous frames and strong constitutions, they 
could endure a great amount of privation and 
fatigue with impunity. The names of Menzies, 
Lightfoot, Dickson, Stewart, and Don are familiar 
to every botanist as those of men who contended 
with innumerable obstacles in the prosecution of 
their favourite science, then in its feeblest infancy, 
and popularly regarded with indifference, if not 
with contempt. The memory of the last-men- 
tioned botanist especially is firmly engrafted in 
botanical literature, in connexion with his great 
services in this department. Such was his enthu- 
siastic love of Alpine plants, that he spent whole 
months at a time collecting them among the 
gloomy solitudes of the Grampians ; his only food 
a little meal, or a bit of crust moistened in the 
mountain burn, and his only couch a bed of 
heather or moss in the shelter of a rock. Before 
the storms of winter were over, and while the 
snow still lay far down on the sides of the 
mountains, he began his wanderings in search of 
his favourites ; and often did he linger on till the 
last autumn flower withered in the red October 
sunlight, and the shortening days and scowling 
heavens warned him of the universal desolation 
fast approaching. The whole of Western Aber- 
deenshire and Northern Forfarshire and Perthshire 
— where the loftiest mountains of Britain have 
congregated together, storming the sky in every 
direction with their gigantic peaks, and filling the 
whole visible scene with themselves and their 






I.] ALPINE BOTANISTS. 9 

shadows — was almost as familiar to him as the 
circumscribed landscape around his native place. 
Nothing of any interest or importance on these 
great ranges escaped his eagle eye ; and from his 
numerous visits, and his lengthened sojourn among 
them, he was enabled to make many interesting 
discoveries, and to add an unusually large number 
of species to the flora of Britain. His discoveries 
were speedily followed up by others, especially 
by those of Dr. Greville, whose recent death has 
been one of the greatest losses to botanical science. 
Professors Graham and Hooker, year after year, 
conducted their pupils to the summits of the High- 
land hills ; and, not satisfied with a mere cursory 
visit, they carried tents and provisions with them, 
and encamped for a week or a fortnight in spots 
favourable for their investigations. So frequently 
within the last few years — particularly under the 
able leadership of Professor Balfour, whose annual 
class excursions are well known throughout Scot- 
land, and highly prized by all who have the 
privilege of sharing in them — have the vegetable 
productions of the principal mountain ranges been 
investigated, that the most lynx-eyed botanist can 
now scarcely hope to do more than add a new 
station for some of the rarer plants ; the dis- 
covery of a new species being regarded as a very 
improbable event. 

The botanist who takes a comprehensive view 
of the plants of Great Britain, will find that, ex- 
cluding exotic species derived from other countries 



1 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

by direct human agency, they may be included 
in four tolerably. distinct groups, which, from their 
relations to the flora of other parts of Europe, 
point to a diversified origin. By far the largest 
portion of our vegetation is composed of forms 
which are abundant over the whole of Central and 
Western Europe, and, from their common occur- 
rence on both sides of the German Ocean, have 
received the name of Germanic plants. In the 
south-western and southern counties of England, 
especially where rocks of the cretaceous system 
prevail, we find a numerous assemblage of plants 
which are seen nowhere else in the British Isles, 
and which, from their close relation to the flora 
of the north-west of France and the Channel 
Islands, have been denominated plants of the 
French type. A small but very distinct group of 
hardy and prolific species is confined to the 
mountainous districts in the west and south-west 
of Ireland. These plants, hardly numbering a 
score, are forms either peculiar to, or abundant 
in, the peninsula of Spain and Portugal, and 
especially in Asturias. Lastly, we have the High- 
land type, w r hich comprehends the species limited 
to the mountains and their immediate vicinity. 
This class embraces all the Alpine plants, and 
contains about a fifteenth of the whole flora of 
Britain — the number of distinct species amounting 
to upwards of a hundred. To the most superficial 
observer, viewed as a whole, they will appear 
strikingly different from the plants which he is 



I.] PECULIARITIES OF HIGHLAND FLORA. 11 

accustomed to see beside his path in the low 
grounds. The Laplanders and Esquimaux are 
not more unlike the inhabitants of England and 
Scotland, than the Alpine flora is unlike that of 
the plains. The flowers which deck the woods 
and fields have no representatives in this lofty 
region. The traveller leaves them one after an- 
other behind when he ascends beyond a certain 
elevation ; and though a very few hard}/ kinds 
do succeed in climbing to the very summit, they 
assume strange forms which puzzle the eye, and 
become dwarfed and stunted by the severer climate 
and the ungenial soil. All the way up, from a line 
of altitude varying, according to the character of 
the mountain range, between two and three thou- 
sand feet, you are in the midst of a new floral 
world, genera and species as unfamiliar as though 
you had been suddenly and unconsciously spirited 
away to a foreign country. There are a few iso- 
lated islands scattered over the ocean, whose forms 
of life are unique. St. Helena and the Galapagos 
Archipelago are such centres of creation, having 
nothing in common with the nearest mainland. It 
is the same with the mountain summits in this 
country that are higher than three thousand feet. 
They may be compared to islands in an aerial 
ocean, having a climate and animal and vegetable 
productions quite distinct from those of the low 
grounds. Their plants grow in thick masses, co- 
vering extensive surfaces with a soft carpet of 
moss-like foliage, and producing a profusion of 



1 2 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

blossoms, large in proportion to the size of the 
leaves, and often of brilliant shades of red, 
white, and blue ; or they creep along the ground 
in thickly interwoven woody branches, wholly 
depressed, sending out at intervals a few hard, 
wrinkled leaves, and very small, faintly-coloured, 
and inconspicuous flowers. Their roots are usually 
very woody, or, like those of bulbous plants, 
wrapped up in membraneous coverings ; and their 
stems are strongly inclined to form buds. They^re 
almost all perennial, the number of annuals being 
exceedingly small. In all these typical pecu- 
liarities, which, it may be remarked, are special 
adaptations to the unfavourable circumstances in 
which they are placed, they bear a very close 
resemblance to the plants of the Polar Zone ; and 
this similarity in the character of the vegetation 
may be traced from the Arctic regions to the 
Equator, if we compare, on the mountains of the 
different zones, the corresponding higher regions, 
where the isothermal lines are the same, with each 
other. It must be understood, however, that, ex- 
cept in cases where the plants were originally 
derived from one centre of distribution, through 
migration over continuous or closely continuous 
land, the relationship of Alpine and Arctic vege- 
tation in the Southern Hemisphere, under similar 
conditions with that of the Northern, is entirely 
maintained by representative, and not by identical 
species — the representation, too, being in great part 
generic, and not specific. 






I.] MO UNTAIN PLANTS OF JAVA. 13 



Strange to say, though so near Europe, the lofty 
peak of Tenerifife contains on its sides and summit 
no Alpine flora of a European type. The Retamas 
of the highest zone are as peculiar to the island as 
the Euphorbias of the lowest. This absence of 
northern forms is probably owing to the immense 
amount of the radiation and the unfavourable 
hygrometrical conditions of the locality. An equal 
destitution of Alpine vegetation has been observed 
on^the mountains of Bourbon and Mauritius. On 
the isolated volcanic peaks of Java, however, 
though south of the equator, we have plants closely 
allied to those of the Grampians, while a totally 
different class of plants clothes the lowlands for 
thousands of miles around. At a height of 8,000 
feet, on the Pangerango mountain, in Java, Mr. 
Wallace found upw r ards of forty species,, repre- 
senting European and Alpine genera, and four 
species actually identical with European species. 
The Artemisia or southernwood, and the ribwort 
plantain — the commonest weeds in every British 
field — occur on this peak at a height of 9,000 
feet. Beside them, in the damp shade of the 
thickets is found the royal cowslip {Primula 
itnperialis), which has a tall, stout stem, more 
than three feet high, with root-leaves eight 
inches long, and having, instead of a single ter- 
minal cluster of cow r slip-like flowers, several tiers 
or whorls, one above another like a Chinese 
pagoda. This gorgeous cowslip is found nowhere 
else in the world than on this solitary mountain- 



1 4 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

summit. On the higher slopes of the Himalayas, 
and on the tops of the mountains of Central India 
and Abyssinia, a great many European genera are 
found, whose existence in such spots Mr. Darwin 
believes to be owing to the depression of tem- 
perature that was so general during the glacial 
epoch as to allow a few north temperate plants to 
cross the equator by the most elevated routes of 
mountain-chains, and to reach the Antarctic regions 
where they are now found. He believes that j|he 
plants on the equatorial summits and the Alpine 
plants of Europe sprang from a common parentage, 
and that the modifications which the former have 
undergone are owing entirely to altered conditions 
operating during a long period of time. In New 
Zealand, which is the head-quarters of the Com- 
positse as well as the ferns, a very remarkable 
genus of composite plants called Raoulia occurs 
on the sides and summits of the loftier mountains. 
It numbers twelve distinct species, all of which 
range from 3,000 to 7,000 feet on Mounts Cook 
and Doban, and the Nelson and Otago moun- 
tains, and form dense, wide-spreading carpets or 
cushions. The down on the leaves is developed to 
such an extent as to completely cover them, and 
almost to conceal the star-like flower-heads. One 
species, the R. eximia, forms gigantic white woolly 
masses on the ground, and looks at a distance like 
a flock of sheep grazing on the mountain-side. 
Indeed, the shepherds are so often deceived by 
them when folding their charge that the plant has 



I.] ANOMALIES IN DISTRIBUTION. 15 

come to be known among the settlers as the 
" vegetable sheep." This curious genus represents 
in New Zealand the common cat's-paw or moun- 
tain everlasting (Antennaria dioicd) whose dry- 
white or pink flowers and downy leaves cover our 
moorlands in myriads ; or rather, perhaps, the 
closely-allied Gnaphalium supinum, a tiny cudweed 
which grows on the extreme summits of the highest 
Highland mountains. There is one Alpine Gna- 
phalium, peculiar to Greenland and Lapland, called 
the G. leontopoides, or lion's-paw cudweed, whose 
dense heads are smothered in white silky down. 
The new Zealand " vegetable sheep " is, therefore, 
only an extraordinary development of this pecu- 
liarity of the tribe even on our own mountains. 

There are several curious anomalies in the dis- 
tribution of Alpine plants, for which no perfectly 
satisfactory explanation has yet been given. For 
instance, the genus Dioscorea is pre-eminently 
tropical, being peculiar to the hottest regions of 
the old and new worlds, the roots of several 
members being esculent, and used as culinary 
vegetables, like potatoes. Strange to say, one 
species of the family, and only one, is found in 
Europe, the D. Pyrenaica, which is an Alpine 
plant recently discovered at a considerable alti- 
tude on the Pyrenees. In like manner, the genus 
Pelargonium is peculiarly African and Australian ; 
and yet a species of it, also an Alpine plant, the 
P. Endlicherianuniy has been found on the chain 
of the Taurus in several stations extending from 



1 6 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

Pamphylia to Armenia. The extraordinary genus 
PilostyleSy resembling in miniature the gigantic 
Rafflesia of the Eastern Archipelago — without root, 
stem, or leaves, and consisting only of a bell- 
shaped flower sessile on the bark of the tree on 
which it is a parasite — is peculiar to South America. 
A species, however, has recently been found in the 
Alpine regions of Asia Minor, called P. Haus- 
knechtii ; and though so far out of its proper 
region, it preserves the peculiar habit of the genus. 
All the species grow on the bean family ; and, true 
to its native instinct, this Asiatic rover is confined 
exclusively to a kind of spiny Astragalus. To 
account for the presence of this South American 
plant on the mountains of Asia Minor is one of 
the knottiest points in geographical botany. We 
can explain in some measure the occurrence of the 
African Pelargonium on the mountains of Taurus 
on the same grounds that we can account for the 
remarkable similarity — the almost identity — of 
the cedar of the Atlas range and the cedar of 
Lebanon and of the mountains of Taurus. Great 
changes of surface in very recent geological times 
have taken place on the African and Asiatic con- 
tinents, as is proved by many Mediterranean spe- 
cies of fishes being found in the Red Sea and yet 
not in the Indian Ocean ; by the fishes of the salt 
lakes of Sahara being identical with those of the 
Gulf of Guinea ; and, more extraordinary still, 
those of the Sea of Galilee with those of the Nile, 
of the lakes of South-eastern Africa, and the 



i.J PELARGONIUM AND PILOSTYLES. \ J 

Zambesi. During some one or other of the great 
changes of sea and land necessary to produce this 
remarkable resemblance between the inhabitants 
of waters now so remote and isolated, the Pelar- 
gonium may have spread from Africa to Asia 
Minor. The occurrence of the genus in Australia 
may be owing to the same cause which produced 
the resemblance between the marsupial animals, and 
especially the plants, of Europe during the Eocene 
epoch, and those of Australia at the present day ; 
a resemblance so striking, that in order to form an 
idea of the appearance of our country during this 
geological period w r e have only to visit our great 
colony at the Antipodes. But what is the con- 
nexion between the sub-Alpine Pilostyles of Asia 
Minor and the rest of its family in South America? 
It has been ascertained that the sub-tropical flora 
of Europe during the Miocene epoch is largely 
American and Japanese. Of the Swiss Miocene 
plants, for instance, no less than 232 species have 
their nearest allies living in the United States and 
tropical America, while 108 occur in Asia. In all 
probability, therefore, the Miocene flora of Europe 
came from America during the Eocene epoch, across 
the Atlantic, over a great island-continent then 
existing, which botanists have called "Atlantis," 
after the ancient legend ; and since the Miocene 
period, this American flora spread from Europe 
over Asia Minor, Northern Asia, and Japan, in 
comparatively high latitudes and at consider- 
able elevations, returning to their birthplace by 

C 



1 8 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

these routes, after having made the circuit of the 
globe. The present flora of America has descended 
from these progenitors— the plants of the Eocene 
and Cretaceous periods of that continent. If we 
accept this hypothetical Atlantic continent as 
a scientific fact — established, as it is, by many 
curious coincidences — it explains to us how there 
should still be left on the mountains of Asia Minor 
— like a shell on the shore — a solitary survivor of 
an ancient American flora identical with the pre- 
sent. The Pilostyles of Asia Minor stands in very 
much the same relation to the ancient American 
flora of Europe and Northern Asia, as the one 
species of myrtle and the one species of laurel now 
left to us stand to the very large family of myrtles 
and laurels which spread over Central Europe 
during the tertiary epoch, and have retreated in 
these days to the tropical and sub-tropical countries 
of the two worlds, where they are as numerous as 
of old. 

But in passing from these interesting specu- 
lations in general geographical botany to the 
consideration of our own Alpine flora, a very 
interesting question arises, — What is the origin 
of these plants on the British hills ? We can 
hardly suppose them to be indigenous ; for they 
evidently maintain their existence, in the very 
limited areas to which they are confined, with 
extreme difficulty, and are comparatively few in 
number, and poor and meagre in appearance. For 
these reasons we are fairly entitled to conclude that 



I.] ORIGIN OF HIGHLAND FLORA. 19 

they are members of specific centres beyond their 
own area ; and these centres must be sought in 
places where the physical conditions are most 
favourable for their growth, and where they attain 
the utmost profusion and luxuriance of which they 
are constitutionally capable. Now, if we examine 
the flora of the Lapland and Norwegian mountains, 
we find that it is not only specifically identical with 
that of the British Isles, but also that the species of 
the former are more numerous, and exhibit a greater 
development of individual forms, than those of the 
latter, constituting in many places the common 
continuous vegetation of extensive districts. 1 This 
fact seems to indicate the Scandinavian mountains 
as the geographical centres from which we have 
derived our Alpine plants ; and, as might have been 
expected, allowing this supposition to be true, their 
gradual migration southwards may be very dis- 
tinctly traced, like the descent in after ages of the 
rude Norsemen, by the species left behind on nu- 
merous intervening points. On the Faroe Islands, 
for instance, we have three plants of the Scandina- 
vian type which have stopped short there — viz. 

1 In a collection of fifty-two plants from Baffin's Bay, in lat. 67 ° 
and 76 N., made by a friend some years ago, twenty were identical 
with British species, only somewhat smaller and more stunted. 
They were gathered during June and July, when the flowers were 
fully expanded, chiefly on the sea-shore, only three being peculiar to 
a more elevated locality. The prevailing colour was dark or pale 
yellow ; blue or lilac flowers being comparatively rare. Of the 
same natural orders seventy-four species occur in Great Britain at an 
elevation of three thousand feet or upwards. 

C 2 



20 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

Saxifraga tricuspidata, Kamigia islandica, and 
Ranunculus nivalis. In the Shetland Islands, the 
Arenaria Norwegica, a common plant on the moun- 
tain plateaux of Norway, reaches its southern limits. 
On the northern shores of the mainland, the beau- 
tiful Norwegian primrose appears and ceases. It 
is called Primula farinosa, variety alpina y by 
Norwegian botanists ; but it differs in no respect 
from the P. Scotica of Sutherland and Caithness- 
shire, except in the colour of the flower being paler, 
the tube a little longer, and the calyx elliptical 
rather than ovate. A rich assemblage of northern 
forms is found on the loftiest Highland mountains, 
distributed apparently from north-east to south- 
west, in such a manner as to indicate the line of 
migration. Several species were left behind on the 
Braemar mountains ; while an unusually large pro- 
portion is confined to the Breadalbane range, and 
does not occur further south. Upwards of a score 
of plants found on the Scottish Alps do not reach 
the English mountains ; while several species are 
to be met with on Skiddaw and other hills in the 
north of England which do not extend to the 
Snowdonian range — Ireland receiving only a few 
sporadic species. We find the last representa- 
tives of this peculiar vegetation on the Alps of 
Switzerland, at various elevations from 6,000 to 
10,000 feet, growing in great luxuriance among a 
representative flora special in its region, — a few 
stragglers reaching the Pyrenees in the west, and 
the Carpathian mountains in the east. We thus 



I.] MIGRATION OF ALPINE PLANTS, 21 

find a gradual diminution of the Scandinavian flora 
as we advance southwards — a convincing proof 
that it has been diffused in that direction from its 
original centres of distribution on the elevated 
ranges of Norway and Lapland. And, regarded 
from this point of view, Alpine plants may be 
divided into the boreal type, comprehending those 
species which are confined to the north of Europe, 
and do not reach farther south than Wales, and 
the Alpino-boreal, which not only extend over the 
most elevated land in the British Isles, but also 
occur in abundance at high altitudes on the Swiss 
Alps and the Pyrenees. 

Having thus ascertained the region from which 
our Alpine vegetation was derived, we have next to 
account for its transmission. Norway and Britain, 
at the present day, are widely separated from each 
other by an extensive sea ; and no modes of 
transportation now in operation are sufficient to 
account for the diffusion of the peculiar plants of 
the one country over the mountain ranges of the 
other, in such a manner as we find them distributed. 
The problem was quite inexplicable on the sup- 
position formerly entertained, that there has been 
no striking alteration in the condition of the earth's 
surface since the present flora of the globe was 
created, and that the relations of Britain and 
Norway to each other have always been the same 
as they are now. It need not be wondered at, 
therefore, that botanists took refuge from the dif- 
ficulty in the hypothesis that species have been 



22 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

created indifferently, wherever the conditions were 
fitted for their growth. But now that we know, 
from recently ascertained geological facts, that 
great changes affecting the arrangement of land 
and water throughout the north of Europe have 
taken place during the period of the existence of 
modern vegetation, the key to the mystery has 
been ascertained. 1 

Attention was first directed to this inquiry 
by the late lamented Professor E. Forbes, at the 
meeting of the British Association in 1845; and 
his views on the subject — supported by the most 
ample and, I think, conclusive evidence, derived 
from botanical, geological, and more especially 
zoological facts — are published at considerable 
length in the " Memoirs of the Geological Survey." 
It may seem a superfluous task to direct attention 
to these views, considering the length of time they 
have been before the scientific public ; but I am 
persuaded they are not so well known as they 
ought to be ; and to many, a brief popular deli- 
neation of them will come with all the interest of 
novelty. 



1 The fishes of the Gulf of Bothnia are identical with those of 
the Arctic Ocean and White Sea ; and yet these fishes occur nowhere 
on the Norwegian coasts, the only route by which, under the 
present distribution of land and water, they could have reached 
the one locality from the other. This circumstance proves 
that the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean were once connected. It 
is probable that the plains of Lapland were once under water, 
and that the Scandinavian peninsula was a group of mountainous 
islands. 



I.] GLACIAL EPOCH. 23 

Geological researches have furnished us with two 
fixed points in time between which this migration 
of Scandinavian plants to the British hills took 
place. It must have occurred after the deposition 
of the London Clay, or the Eocene tertiary epoch ; 
for the organic remains found in that formation 
belong to a flora very different from, and requiring 
a far warmer climate than, any now existing on the 
European continent. And, on the other hand, our 
great deposits of peat furnish us with conclusive 
evidence that it must have happened before the 
epoch usually designated " historical.'' Between 
these two periods, geological changes occurred 
which, greatly altered the surface of our islands, 
and modified their climate and the distribution of 
their organic forms. From the relics left behind, 
we learn that a great part of the existing area of 
Great Britain, especially the lowland plains and 
valleys, was covered with the waters of a sea which 
extended over the north and centre of Europe, and 
was characterised by phenomena nearly identical 
with those now presenting themselves on the north- 
east coast of America within the line of summer 
floating ice. This was the sea of the glacial 
period — properly so styled- — when a condition of 
climate existed which will account for all the 
organic phenomena observed in the boulder clays 
and Pleistocene drifts. In the midst of this sea, the 
various mountain ranges and isolated hills, which 
now tower high above the surrounding country, 
were islands, whose bases and sides were washed 



24 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

by the cold waves and abraded by the passing ice- 
floes, and whose summits were covered in many 
places with glaciers, which left their enduring and 
unmistakeable records on the rocks, and in the 
moraines at their foot. It was at this period that 
our now elevated regions received the flora and 
fauna observed upon them at the present day. 
Owing to their favourable position in the midst of 
an ice-covered sea, the means of transport existed 
in abundance ; and the Arctic flora thus brought 
down, and gradually disseminated over all the 
islands as far as the sea extended, has ever since 
been able to maintain its footing, even under the 
altered climate of our times, according to the general 
law of climatal influence, through the elevation of 
the tracts which it inhabits. "This flora would 
probably differ slightly in different parts of its area, 
and hence part of the variations now existing 
between the Alpine floras of Europe. Differences 
might further result from accidental destruction of 
the localities of plants scattered sporadically, and 
from the extinction of forms by various causes 
during the long period which has elapsed since 
they first became mountain plants." 

There is one remarkable fact which may be 
noticed in passing, as affording something like cir- 
cumstantial evidence in favour of this theory. At 
an elevation of between 3,000 and 4,000 feet on the 
principal mountain ranges of Scotland, the botanist 
is astonished to observe the common sea-pink 
growing among the rocks in the utmost profusion. 



I.] THE SEA PINK. 25 

It is precisely identical with that which forms so 
ornamental a feature in the scenery of our sea- 
coasts ; in chemical composition, and in botanical 
appearance and structure, little or no difference 
can be detected between specimens gathered in 
both localities. Nor is it in the Highlands of 
Scotland alone that the plant is found in such an 
unusual situation. All over the continent of Europe 
it occurs on the highest mountains, passing from 
the coast over extensive tracts of country. It has 
never been found in the intermediate plains and 
valleys, except when it has been brought down by 
mountain streams. This singular circumstance, 
otherwise inexplicable, would seem strongly to 
indicate that our mountain chains, as well as those 
of Northern and Central Europe, were once, as 
Professor Forbes asserts, islands in the midst of an 
extensive sea. Plants of sub-Arctic and maritime 
character would then flourish to the water's edge, 
some of which would afterwards disappear under 
altered climatal and physical conditions, leaving the 
hardiest behind. Another survivor of the ancient 
maritime flora which once clothed our mountain 
sides on a level with the glacial w T aves, is the 
Cochlearia Greenlandica, or scurvy grass, so called 
from its peculiar medicinal use. Abundant on all 
our sea-coasts, and never growing inland, it is found 
in isolated spots at a great elevation on the High- 
land hills. It may easily be known by its thick 
tufts, bearing the small white flowers and hot acrid 
leaves peculiar to the cress tribe. It is so hardy as 



26 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

to defy the severest cold of the Arctic regions, 
being found by polar navigators in Melville Island, 
under the snow, at the very farthest limit of vege- 
tation. Farther down, on the sides of our great 
mountain ranges, we still occasionally observe the 
Plantago marititna, another plant existing nowhere 
else but on the sea-shore. During the glacial 
epoch it would flourish in a lower zone than the 
others, nearer the water's edge, and hence its 
peculiar altitudinal position at the present day. 
These three examples, for which no other plausible 
explanation can be offered, go far to substantiate 
the theory of the transmission of the Scandinavian 
flora to our islands, in consequence of the great 
changes of surface and climate which took place 
during the glacial epoch. 

The plants growing at the present day on the 
Scottish mountains are thus not only different from 
those found in the valleys at their base, but they 
are also much older. They are the surviving relics 
of what constituted for many ages the sole flora 
of Europe, when Europe consisted only of islands 
scattered at distant intervals over a wide waste of 
waters bristling with icebergs and ice-floes. How 
suggestive of marvellous reflection is the thought, 
that these flowers, so fragile that the least rude 
breath of wind might break them, and so delicate 
that they fade with the first scorching heat of 
August, have existed in their lonely and isolated 
stations on the Highland hills from a time so 
remote that, in comparison with it, the antiquity of 



I.] ALTITUDE AND LATITUDE. 27 

recorded time is but as yesterday; have survived 
all the vast cosmical changes which elevated them, 
along with the hills upon which they grew, to the 
clouds — converted the bed of a mighty ocean into 
a fertile continent, peopled it with new races of 
plants and animals, and prepared a scene for the 
habitation of man ! Only a few hundred individual 
plants of each species— in some instances only a 
few tufts here and there- — are to be found on the 
different mountains ; and yet these little colonies, 
prevented by barriers of climate and soil from 
spreading themselves beyond their native spots, 
have gone on season after season for thousands of 
ages, renewing their foliage and putting forth their 
blossoms, though beaten by the storms, scorched 
by the sunshine, and buried by the Alpine snows, 
scathless and vigorous while all else was changing 
around. It is one of the most striking and con- 
vincing examples within the whole range of natural 
history, of the permanency of species ! 

Our globe may be compared to two enormous 
snow-capped mountains set base to base at the 
equator ; the Northern Hemisphere representing 
one, and the Southern the other. The equator is 
the foot of each ; the middle part of both answers 
to the two temperate zones, north and south ; and 
the opposite summits correspond with the Arctic 
and Antarctic regions. Thus in each tropical moun- 
tain we have an epitome of half of the great earth 
itself; and all the climates of the world, and all 
the zones of vegetation, may be felt and seen in 



28 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

passing from its foot to its top in a single day. 
Altitude is analogous with latitude. To climb a 
lofty Highland hill is equivalent to undertaking a 
summer voyage to the Arctic regions ; a vertical 
ascent of 4,000 feet in three hours enabling us to 
reach a north pole which we could only have 
attained in as many months by a journey through 
seventy degrees of latitude. The leading phe- 
nomena of the Polar world are presented to us 
on a small scale within the circumscribed area of 
the mountain summit. The same specific rocks 
along which Parry and Ross coasted in the un- 
known seas of the North, here crop above the 
surface, and yield by their disintegration the same 
kind of vegetation. The Alpine hare is common 
to both ; and the ptarmigan, which penetrates in 
large flocks as far as Melville Island, is often seen 
flying round the grey rocks of the higher Gram- 
pians, and exhibiting its singular changes of plumage 
from a mottled brown in summer to pure white in 
winter, so rapidly as to be perceptible from day 
to day. Although none of the Scotch mountains 
reach the line of perpetual snow, yet large snowy 
masses, smoothed and hardened by pressure into 
the consistence of glacier-ice, not unfrequently lie 
in shady hollows all the year round, and remind 
one of the frozen hills of Greenland and Spitz- 
bergen. Sweltering with midsummer heat in the 
low confined valleys, we are here revived and 
invigorated by the chill breezes of the Pole. We 
have thus in our own country, and within short 



I.] ZONES OF ALTITUDE. 29 

and easy reach of our busiest towns, specimens and 
exact counterparts of those terrible Arctic fast- 
nesses, to explore which every campaign has been 
made at the cost of endurance beyond belief — often 
at the sacrifice of the most noble and valuable lives. 
Our Alpine plants may be distributed in three 
distinct zones of altitude, characterised by Mr. 
Watson in his admirable u Cybele Britannica" dif- 
ferently from the usual mode. We have first the 
sziflcr-Arctic zone, bounded below by the limit of 
the common heather at an elevation of about 3,000 
feet, and defined negatively by the absence, rather 
than the presence, of particular plants, only two 
species being peculiar to it in this country. This 
zone, characterised as that of the herbaceous 
willow without the heather, occurs only in the 
Highland provinces, where the highest mountains 
have their summits considerably above the limits 
of the heather. We have next, lower down, the 
mid- Arctic zone, lying between the heather line and 
that of the cross-leaved heath, at about 2,000 feet, 
characterised by the heather without the heath. 
This comprehends the highest mountains of Eng- 
land, Wales, and Ireland, and all the great ranges 
of Scotland, and contains by far the largest pro- 
portion of rare and beautiful Alpine' plants, being 
especially rich in Arctic forms. And, lastly, we 
have the infer-Arctic zone, bounded above by the 
Erica and below by the bracken, and the limits of 
cultivation at about i ; 400 feet. Of course in this 
zone, which may be characterised as that of the 



30 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

cross-leaved heath without the brake fern, the 
plants approach more closely to the Lowland type, 
though containing a large number of species of the 
true Alpine and Arctic form. These three zones of 
altitude are distinguished generally by the affinity 
of their flora to that of the most northern parts of 
Europe, Siberia, and America, and in a less degree 
to that of the higher parts of the Swiss Alps, 
Pyrenees, and Carpathians. We must regard this 
arrangement, however, though very convenient for 
general purposes, as somewhat arbitrary and arti- 
ficial ; for Nature is never precise and definite in her 
lines of demarcation : on the one hand, many Alpine 
plants growing indiscriminately in all the three 
zones, and descending in some places even to the 
sea-shore ; while, on the other hand, many common 
Lowland species come up from the cultivated re- 
gions, and grow on the highest summits, although 
suffering a stunting of their habit from the severer 
climate. Accidental or local circumstances produce 
considerable variations in the altitude of the various 
species. The violent storms which frequently rage 
in mountain regions sometimes detach fragments 
of soil, in which several species are rooted, and 
plant them far down among the productions of the 
valley ; the Alpine streams not only bring down 
the seeds of Alpine plants, but also, to a certain 
extent, the cold of the summits, so that their banks 
will support the species of a severer climate than is 
natural to the latitude and elevation. On the other 
hand, deep lakes and other large sheets of water — 



I.] ALTITUDINAL RANGE OF PLANTS. 31 

as they are less liable to sudden changes than the 
atmosphere, and preserve a nearly equal tempera- 
ture all the year round — sensibly mitigate the 
climate of • the mountains in their immediate 
vicinity, at considerable heights above their sur- 
face ; hence we not unfrequently find, at an 
elevation of 2,000 and even 3,000 feet, the plants 
peculiar to the edge of the water and the lowest 
declivities blooming in great abundance and luxu- 
riance. On the southern slopes of great ranges 
which are sheltered from the northern blasts, and 
more exposed to the light and heat of the sun, the 
same species are found at a higher altitude than 
on the northern sides. The range, as well as the 
character, of the flora is also greatly influenced by 
the geological construction of the mountains — the 
number of shady rocks and moist precipices, or 
comparatively smooth grassy slopes ; the direction 
and nature of the prevailing winds ; the frequency 
of streams and wells ; and, above all, by the geo- 
graphical position of the hills, — whether they form 
part of an extensive and continuous chain, carrying 
the general level of the country to a considerable 
height above the sea-line, and abounding in ele- 
vated plateaux and corries, or whether they form 
conical or isolated peaks rising abruptly from the 
plains. Considerable allowances must also be 
made for different latitudes; for though the area 
of the British Isles is somewhat limited, there is a 
considerable difference between the temperature 
of the northern and southern points ; so that the 



HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 



isothermal lines of Caithness and Sutherland, at 
an elevation of 1,300 feet, correspond to those of 
the summit of Snowdon. The mean annual tem- 
perature in the south-west of England is 52 ; 
whereas in the central districts of Scotland it is 
only 47 , and in the north-east counties as low as 
46 or even 45 , — one degree being deducted for 
inland localities under the same latitude, and one 
degree for each three hundred feet of elevation 
above the level of the sea. Attributing their due 
influence to all these disturbing causes, it will be 
found, with tolerable regularity and definiteness, 
that the region occupied by the true Alpine flora 
extends from an elevation of 2,000 feet to the 
summits of our highest mountains. This region, 
as may easily be imagined, is the dreariest and 
most desolate portion of our country. 

Etherealized by the changing splendour of the 
heavens as the mountain summit appears when 
surveyed from below, rising up from the huge 
mound of rock and earth like a radiant flower 
above its dark foliage, it affords another illustration 
of the poetic adage, that "'Tis distance lends 
enchantment to the view." When you actually 
stand upon it, you find that the reality is very 
different from the ideal. The clouds that float 
over it, " those mountains of another element, ,, 
which looked from the valley like gorgeous frag- 
ments of the sun, now appear in their true cha- 
racter as masses of cold, dull vapour ; and the 
mountain peak, deprived of the transforming glow 



I.] NATURE OF MOUNTAIN SUMMITS. 33 

of light, has become one of the dreariest and 
most desolate spots on which the eye can rest. 
Not a tuft of grass, not a bush of heather, is to 
be seen anywhere. The earth, beaten hard by 
the frequent footsteps of the storm, is bare and 
leafless as the world on the first morning of 
creation. Huge fragments of rocks, the monu- 
ments of elemental wars and convulsions, rise up 
here and there, so rugged and distorted that they 
seem like nightmares petrified ; while the ground 
is frequently covered with cairns of loose hoary 
stones, which look like the bones which remained 
unused after nature had built up the great skeleton 
of the earth, and which she had cast aside in this 
solitude to blanch and crumble away unseen. 
When standing there during a misty storm, it 
requires little effort of imagination to picture your- 
self a shipwrecked mariner, cast ashore on one of 
the sublimely barren islands of the Antarctic 
Ocean. You involuntarily listen to hear the moan- 
ing of the waves, and watch for the beating of the 
foaming surge on the rocks around. The dense 
writhing mists hurrying up from the profound 
abysses on every side imprison you within "the 
narrow circle of their ever-shifting walls," and 
penetrate every fold of your garments, and your 
skin itself, becoming a constituent of your blood, 
and chilling the very marrow of your bones. 
Around you there is nothing visible save the 
vague, vacant sea of mist, with the shadowy form 
of some neighbouring peak looming through it 

D 



34 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 



like the genius of the storm ; while your ears are 
deafened by the howling of the wind among the 
whirling masses of mist, by " the airy tongues that 
syllable men's names," the roaring of the cataracts; 
and the other wild sounds of the desert never 
dumb. And yet, dreary and desolate although 
the scene usually appears, it has its own periods 
of beauty, its own days of brightness and cheer- 
fulness. Often in the quiet autumn noon the eye 
is arrested by the mute appeal of some lovely 
Alpine flower, sparkling like a lone star in a mid- 
night sky, among the tufted moss and -the hoary 
lichens, and seeming, as it issues from the stony 
mould, an emanation of the indwelling life, a 
visible token of the upholding love which pervades 
the wide universe. If winter and spring in that 
elevated region be one continued storm, the short 
summer of a few weeks' duration seems one en- 
chanting festival of light. The life of earth is 
then born in " dithyrambic joy," blooms and bears 
fruit under the glowing sunshine, the balmy breezes, 
and the rich dews of a few days. Scenes of life, 
interest, and beauty are crowded together with a 
seeming rapidity as if there were no time to lose. 
Flowers the fairest and the most fragile expand 
their exquisitely pencilled blossoms even amid 
dissolving wreaths of snow, and produce an im- 
pression all the more delightful and exhilarating 
from the consciousness of their short-lived beauty, 
and the contrast they exhibit to the desolation 
that immediately preceded. 



L] COMMON ALPINE PLANTS. 35 

A large proportion of our Alpine plants are 
universally diffused, being found in abundance on 
all the British mountains of sufficient elevation. 
The Alpine Alchemilla carpets with its satiny 
leaves the sides of every mountain at an elevation 
of about a thousand feet ; in Braemar it forms 
the common verdure by the wayside, and mingles 
with the daisies beside the village houses. The 
Sibbaldia procumbens y somewhat resembling it, is 
abundant on all the Highland hills, though it does 
not penetrate farther south ; by the roadside on 
the ascent of the Cairnwall, near Braemar, it is 
exceedingly common. While the mountain rue 
{Thalictrum alpinum) y the white Alpine cerastium, 
the purple-rayed erigeron, the snowy dryas, the 
blue veronica, the Alpine saussurea and potentilla, 
are comparatively common on all the higher ranges 
of England, Wales, and Scotland. But the most 
common and abundant of the plants which grow 
on the Highland mountains are the different 
species of saxifrage. They are found in cold 
bleak situations all over the world from the Arctic 
circle to the equator, and, with the mosses and 
lichens, form the last efforts of expiring nature 
which fringe around the limits of eternal snow. 
A familiar example of the tribe is very frequently 
cultivated in old-fashioned gardens and rockeries 
under the name of London pride. Though little 
prized, on account of its commonness, this plant 
has a remarkable pedigree. It grows wild on the 
romantic hills in the south-west of Ireland, from 

D 2 



36 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

which all the plants that are cultivated in our 
gardens, and that have escaped from cultivation 
into woods and waste places, have been originally 
derived. In that isolated region the London pride 
is associated with several kinds of heather, with 
one curious transparent fern, and four or five kinds 
of lichens and mosses which are found nowhere 
else in the British Isles, and are eminently typical 
of southern latitudes. In fact, the same species 
are again met with on the mountains in the north 
of Spain ; and the theory which botanists have 
founded upon this remarkable circumstance is, 
that the south-west of Ireland and the north 
of Spain were at one period of the earth's history 
geologically connected, either by a chain of islands 
or a ridge of hills. Over this continuous land — 
which we have abundant evidence to prove ex- 
tended without interruption from the province of 
Munster beyond the Canary Islands — the gulf- 
weed, which floats to the west of the Azores, 
probably indicating the western shore of the 
submerged continent — flourished a rich and pecu- 
liar flora of the true Atlantic type. The inter- 
mediate links of the floral chain have been lost 
by the destruction of the land on which it grew ; 
but on opposite shores of the Bay of Biscay, sepa- 
rated by hundreds of miles, the ends of the chain 
still exist, amid the wilds of Killarney and the 
mountain valleys of Asturia. The London pride 
is, therefore, the oldest plant now growing in the 
British Isles. 



I.] SAXIFRA GES. 3 7 

The history of the saxifrages which grow on the 
Highland hills is scarcely less remarkable — only 
that they are of Arctic instead of Atlantic origin, 
and were introduced at a subsequent period into 
this country. No less than seven different species 
are found on the Scottish mountains, growing in- 
discriminately at various altitudes, from the base 
to the highest summits, on the moist banks of 
Alpine streams, as well as on bleak exposed rocks 
where there is hardly a particle of soil to nourish 
their roots, and over which the wind drives with 
the force of a hurricane. The rarest of these saxi- 
frages is the vS. cernna, found nowhere else in 
Britain than on the extreme top of Ben Lawers, 
where it seldom flowers, but is kept in existence, 
propagated from generation to generation by means 
of viviparous bulbs, in the form of little red grains 
produced in the axils of the small upper leaves. 
It resembles the common meadow saxifrage in the 
shape of its leaves and flower so closely that, 
though the viviparous bulbs of the one are produced 
at the junction of the leaves with the stem, and 
those of the other at the root, Bentham considers 
it to be merely a starved Alpine variety. Be this 
as it may, it preserves its peculiar characters un- 

j altered, not only within the very narrow area 
to which it is confined in Britain, but throughout 

: the w 7 hole Arctic circle, where it has a wide range 
of distribution. So frequently within the last 
sixty years have specimens been gathered from 
the station which, unfortunately, every botanist 



38 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

knows well, that only a few individuals are now 
to be seen at long intervals, and these exceedingly 
dwarfed and deformed. On no less than twenty- 
six different occasions I have examined it there, 
and been grieved to mark the ravages of ruthless 
collectors. I fear much that, at no distant date, 
the most interesting member of the British flora 
will disappear from the only locality known for it 
south of Norway. After having survived all the 
storms and vicissitudes of countless ages, historical 
and geological, to perish at last under the spud of 
the botanist, were as miserable an anti-climax in 
its way as the end of the soldier who had gone 
through all the dangers of the Peninsular war, and 
was killed by a cab in the streets of London, 

The loveliest of the whole tribe is the purple 
saxifrage, which, fortunately, is as common as it is 
beautiful. It grows in the barest and bleakest 
spots on the mountains of England and Wales, as 
well as those of the Highlands, creeping in dense 
straggling tufts of hard wiry foliage over the arid 
soil, profusely covered with large purple blossoms, 
presenting an appearance somewhat similar to, but 
much finer than, the common thyme. It makes 
itself so conspicuous by its brilliancy that it cannot 
fail to be noticed by every one who ascends the 
loftier hills in the appropriate season. It is the 
avant-courier of the Alpine plants — the primrose, 
so to speak, of the mountains — blooming in the 
blustering days of early April ; often opening its 
rosy blooms in the midst of large masses of snow. 



L] purple saxifrage. 39 

And well is it entitled to lead the bright array of 
Flora's children, which, following the march of the 
sun, bloom and fade, one after the other, from 
April to October, and keep the desolate hills con- 
tinually garlanded with beauty. It is impossible to 
imagine anything fairer than a combination of the 
soft curving lines of the pure unsullied snow, with 
the purple blooms rising from its cold embrace, and 
shedding over it the rosy reflected light of their 
own loveliness. I remember being greatly struck 
with its beauty several years ago in a lonely corrie 
far up the sides of Ben Cruachan. That was a little 
verdant oasis hid amid the surrounding barrenness 
like a violet among its leaves — one of the sweetest 
spots that ever filled the soul of a weary, careworn 
man with yearning for a long repose ; walled round 
and sheltered from the winds by a wild chaos of 
mountain ridges, animated by the gurgling of many 
a white Alpine rill descending from the cliffs, 
carpeted with the softest and mossiest turf, richly 
embroidered with rare mountain flowers, with a 
very blaze of purple saxifrage. I saw it on a 
bright, quiet summer afternoon, when the lights 
and shades of the setting sun brought out each 
retiring beauty to the best advantage. It was just 
such a picture as disposes one to think with wonder 
of all the petty meannesses and ambitions of con- 
ventional life. We feel the insignificance of wealth, 
and the worthlessness of fame, when brought face 
to face with the purity and beauty of nature in such 
a spot. How trifling are the incidents which in 



40 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

such a scene arrest the attention and fix themselves 
indelibly in the mind, to be recalled long after- 
wards, perhaps in the crowded city and in the press 
of business, when the graver matters of every-day 
life that have intervened are utterly forgotten. 
High up among the cliffs, round which a line of 
braided clouds, softer and fairer than snow, clings 
motionless all day long, rises at intervals the 
mellow bleat of a lamb, deepening the universal 
stillness by contrast, and carrying with it wherever 
it moves the very centre and soul of loneliness. A 
muir-cock rises suddenly from a grey hillock beside 
you, showing for a moment his glossy brown 
plumage and scarlet crest, and then off like the rush 
of an ascending sky-rocket, with his startling kok- 
kok-kok sounding fainter and fainter in the dis- 
tance. Or perhaps a red deer wanders unexpect- 
edly near you, gazes awhile at your motionless 
figure with large inquiring eyes, and ears erect, and 
antlers cutting the blue sky like the branches of 
a tree, until at last, wearied by its stillness, and 
almost fancying it a vision, you raise your arm and 
give a shout, when away it flies in a series of swift 
and graceful bounds through the shadow of a cloud 
resting upon a neighbouring hill, and transforming 
it for a moment into the similitude of a pine-forest, 
over its rocky shoulder, away to some lonely far-off 
mountain spring, that wells up perhaps where 
human foot had never trodden. 

Speaking of springs, there is no feature in the 
Alpine scenery more beautiful than the wells and 



I.] AN ALPINE STREAM. 41 

streamlets which make every hill-side bright with 
their sunny sparkle and musical with their liquid 
murmurs ; and there are no spots so rich in moun- 
tain plants as their banks. Trace them to their 
source, high up above the common things of the 
world, and they form a crown of joy to the bare 
granite rocks, diffusing around them beauty and 
verdure like stars brightening their own rays. A 
fringe of deeply-green moss clusters round their 
edges, not creeping and leaning on the rock, but 
growing erect in thick tufts of fragile and slender 
stems ; clouds of golden confervse, like the most 
delicate floss-silk, float in the open centre of clear 
w^ater, the ripple of which gives motion and quick 
play of light and shade to their graceful filaments. 
The Alpine willow-herb bends its tiny head from 
the brink, to add its rosy reflection to the exquisite 
harmony of colouring in the depths ; the rock 
veronica forms an outer fringe of the deepest blue ; 
while the little moss campion enlivens the decom- 
posing rocks in the vicinity with a continuous 
velvet carpeting of the brightest rose-red and the 
most brilliant green. The indescribable loveliness 
of this glowing little flower strikes every one who 
sees it for the first time on the mountains speechless 
with admiration. Imagine cushions of tufted moss, 
with all the delicate grace of its foliage miraculously 
blossoming into myriads of flowers, rosier than the 
vermeil hue on beauty's cheek, or the cloudlet that 
lies nearest the setting sun, crowding upon each 
other so closely that the whole seems an intense 



42 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

floral blush, and you will have some faint idea of its 
marvellous beauty. 1 We have nothing to compare 
with it among Lowland flowers. Following the 
course of the sparkling stream from this enchanted 
land, it conducts us down the slope of the hill to 
beds of the mountain avens, decking the dry and 
stony knolls on either side with its downy pro- 
cumbent leaves and large white flowers, more 
adapted, one would suppose, to the shelter of the 
woods than the bleak exposure of the mountain 
side. Farther down the declivity, where the stream, 
now increased in size, scooped out for itself a deep 
rocky channel, which it fills from side to side in its 
hours of flood and fury — hours when it is all too 
terrible to be approached by mortal footsteps — we 
find the mountain sorrel hanging its clusters of 
kidney-shaped leaves and greenish rose-tipped 
blossoms — a grateful salad — from the beetling brows 
of the rocks ; while, on the drier parts, we observe 
immense masses of the rose-root stonecrop grow- 
ing where no other vegetation save the parti- 
coloured nebulae of lichens could exist. This cactus- 
like plant is furnished with thick fleshy leaves, with 
few or no evaporating pores ; which enables it to 
retain the moisture collected by its large, woody, 
penetrating root, and thus to endure the long-con- 
tinued droughts of summer, when the stream below 
is shrunk down to the green gleet of its slippery 
stones, and the little Naiad weeps her impoverished 

i A sheet of it last summer on one of the Westmoreland moun- 
tains measured five feet across, and was one solid mass of colour. 



i j PLANTS OF THE ALPINE STREAM. 43 

urn. Following the stream lower down, we come 
to a more sheltered and fertile region of the moun- 
tain, where pool succeeds pool, clear and deep, in 
which you can see the fishes lying motionless, or 
darting away like arrows when your foot shakes 
the bank or your shadow falls upon the water. 
There is now a wide level margin of grass on either 
side, as smooth as a shaven lawn ; and meandering 
through it, little tributary rills trickle into the 
stream, their marshy channels edged with rare 
Alpine rushes and carices, and filled with great 
spongy cushions of red and green mosses, enlivened 
by the white blossoms of the starry saxifrage. The 
5. aizoides grows everywhere around in large beds 
richly covered with yellow flowers, dotted with 
spots of a deeper orange. This lovely species 
descends to a lower altitude than any of its con- 
geners, and may be called the golden fringe of the 
richly-embroidered floral mantle with which Nature 
covers the nakedness of the higher hills. It blooms 
luxuriantly among a whole host of moorland plants, 
sufficient to engage the untiring interest of the 
botanist throughout the long summer day. The 
curious sundew, a vegetable spider, lies in wait 
among the red elevated moss tufts, to catch the 
little black flies in the deadly embrace of its viscid 
leaves ; the bog asphodel stands near, with its 
sword-shaped leaves and golden helmet, like a 
sentinel guarding the spot; the grass of Parnassus 
covers the moist greensward with the bright spar- 
kling of its autumn snow ; while the cotton-grass 



44 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

waves on every side its downy plumes in the faintest 
breeze. Down from this flowery region the stream 
flows with augmented volume, bickering over the 
shingle with a gay poppling sound, and leaving 
creamy wreaths of winking foam between the moss- 
grown stones that protrude from its bed. It laves 
the roots of the crimson heather and the palmy 
leaves of the lady-fern. The sunbeams gleam upon 
its open face with "messages from the heavens ;" 
the rainbow arches its waterfalls ; the panting lamb 
comes to cool its parched tongue in its limpid 
waters ; the lean blue heron, with head and bill 
sunk on its breast, stands motionless in its shallows 
watching for minnows all the long dull afternoon, 
while the dusky ousel flits from stone to stone in 
all the fearless play of its happy life. Hurrying 
swiftly through the brown heathy wastes that clothe 
the lower slopes, it lingers a while where the trem- 
bling aspen and the twinkling birch and the rugged 
alder weave their leafy canopy over it, freckling its 
bustling waves with ever-varying scintillations of 
light and shade ; pauses to water the crofter's 
meadow and cornfield, and to supply the wants of 
a cluster of rude moss-grown huts on its banks, 
which look as if they had grown naturally out of 
the soil ; and then, through a beach of snow-white 
pebbles, it mingles its fretting waters in the blue, 
profound peace of the loch. Such is the bright and 
varied course of the Alpine stream, with its floral 
fringe ; and from its fountain to its fall it is one 
continuous many-linked chain of beauty — an epic 



I.] S UMMIT OF BEN NE VIS. 4 5 

of Nature, full of the richest images and the most 
suggestive poetry. 

Very few of the true Alpine plants grow on the 
actual summits of the Highland hills; and this 
circumstance appears to be due not so much to the 
cold — for the same plants are most abundant and 
most luxuriant throughout the whole Polar zone, 
where the mean annual temperature is far below 
the freezing point, whereas that of the Highland 
summits is 3 or 4 above that point — but to their 
want of shelter from the prevailing storms, and the 
generally unfavourable geological structure of the 
spots. The highest point of Ben Nevis, for in- 
stance, is so thickly macadamized with large masses 
of dry red granite, that there is hardly room for 
the tiniest wild flower to strike root in the soil. It 
looks like the battle-ground of the Titans, or a 
gigantic heap of scoriae cast out from Vulcan's fur- 
nace. It is impossible to imagine, even in the Polar 
regions, any spot more barren and leafless. The 
plants of the super-Arctic and mid-Arctic zones, 
which should be found there owing to its height, 
are therefore obliged to accommodate themselves 
in the infer- Arctic zone, where the necessary con- 
ditions of soil and moisture exist. One of the two 
plants characteristic of the highest zone— viz. the 
Saxifraga rivularis — occurs on the hill, but con- 
siderably below its normal limits. It grows at an 
altitude of 3,000 feet, in a spot irrigated, while the 
plant is in flower, by water trickling from the melt- 
ing snow above. The summit of Ben-y-gloe, rising 



46 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

to a height of 3,900 feet in the north-east corner 
of Perthshire, is also covered with enormous piles 
of snowy gneiss — like the foundation of a ruined 
city, in some places ground into powder by the 
disintegrating effects of the weather, and in others 
occurring in the shape of large blocks thrown 
loosely above each other, so sharp and angular 
that it is one of the most difficult and fatiguing 
tasks imaginable to scramble over the ridge to the 
cairn which crowns the highest point. When sur- 
veyed from below, the peak has a singularly bald 
appearance, scarred and riven by numberless land- 
slips, and the dried-up beds of torrents, and scalped 
by the fury of frequent storms ; and a nearer in- 
spection proves it to be as desolate and leafless 
as the sands of Sahara. On the top of Ben-Mac- 
Dhui, though very broad and massive, as beseems 
a mountain covering a superficial basis of nearly 
forty miles in extent, the only flowering plants 
which occur are, strange to say, those which are 
found in profusion even at the lowest limits of 
Alpine vegetation on the English hills. The last 
time I visited it I observed only seven flowering 
plants near the cairn on the summit, most of which 
were sedges and grasses. The mossy campion, 
however, amply compensated me for the absence 
of the other Alpines by the abundance and bril- 
liancy of its rosy flowers. 

The same remarks apply to nearly all the High- 
land hills. There are only five plants which — 
though sometimes descending to lower altitudes, 



I.] MOSSY CYPHEL. 



one or two of them even to the level of the sea- 
shore on the hills fronting the coast in the north- 
west of Scotland — are invariably found on the 
summits of all the ranges that are more than 3,000 
feet high. These plants are the mossy campion, 
i the Arctic willow, the procumbent sibbaldia, the 
I little dusky-brown gnaphalium, and the curious 
*• cherleria or mossy cyphel. This last little plant 
t'forms an anomaly in the distribution of our Alpine 
flora. It is very abundant in the subnival region 
of the Swiss Alps, growing on the larger groups of 
f mountains, from an altitude of 8,000 to 15,000 feet. 
P It forms one of the most conspicuous of the forty 
plants found on the far-famed " Jardin de la Mer 
*^ de Glace " at Chamouni, described in Murray's 
Handbook as " an oasis in the desert, an island in 
j the ice, a rock which is covered with a beautiful 
•.herbage, and enamelled in August with flowers. 
This is the Jardin of this palace of nature ; and 
nothing can exceed the beauty of such a spot, 
amidst the overwhelming sublimity of the sur- 
rounding objects — the Aiguille of Charmoz, Bletier, 
and the Geant," &c. This highly-coloured descrip- 
tion is, however, a mere euphemism, for in reality 
the so-called garden is only a rock protruding out 
of the glacier, and covered principally with lichens 
and plants whose dull, insignificant appearance 
would not attract the least notice elsewhere. 
Although not very rare on the highest Scottish 
mountains, the cherleria does not extend farther 
north — thus offering a very striking exception to 



48 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

the usual derivation of our mountain flora. It may 
either have emigrated northwards from the Alps 
during the glacial epoch, or it may be regarded as 
a sporadic species, depending upon local conditions 
for its maintenance. From its peculiar and hardy 
appearance, we would almost hazard the opinion 
that it is older than any of the other Alpine 
plants, that it existed on the British hills before 
the migration of the Scandinavian flora, and that 
the Breadalbane mountains form its original centre, 
from which it has been distributed southwards over 
the Swiss Alps. The last inference is warranted 
by its extraordinary luxuriance on Ben Lawers. 
It has nothing to boast of in the shape of flowers, 
the sharpest eyes being hardly able to detect the 
minute greenish petals and stamens among the 
tufted moss-like foliage. It is impossible to convey 
the impression of special adaptation which one 
glance at the plant, in its bare and sterile habitat, 
cannot fail to produce. Its long, tough, woody 
root penetrates deeply the stony soil, so that it is 
with difficulty a specimen can be detached ; and 
so hardy is its nature that it flourishes green and 
luxuriant under the chilling pressure of huge masses 
of snow, and under the unmitigated glare of the 
scorching summer sun. 

Of all the British mountains, Ben Lawers is the 
richest in rare and interesting Alpine species. This 
hill, which may be called the Mecca of the botanist, 
as every neophyte who aspires to the honours of 
his science must pay a visit to its rugged cliffs, 



I.] BEN LAWERS. 49 

occupies very nearly the centre of Scotland. It 
rises in a pyramidal form from the north shore of 
Loch Tay, upwards of 4,000 feet above the level of 
the sea, and commands from its summit, on a clear 
day, an uninterrupted view unparalleled in the 
British islands for variety, sublimity, and extent. 
Though separated from the surrounding mountains 
by two torrents which flow through deep depres- 
sions on its eastern and western sides, it forms with 
them an immense continuous range, upwards of 
forty miles in length, ten in breadth, and of an 
average altitude of 3,000 feet. On this lofty pla- 
teau, known as the Breadalbane chain, which is the 
most uniformly and extensively elevated land in 
Britain, the different peaks of Maelghyrdy, Craig- 
calleach, Ben Lawers, &c, repose like a conclave 
of mighty giants, imparting a serrated appearance 
to the range indescribably wild and savage when 
wreathed with mist or cloud. The whole of this 
vast region is composed almost entirely of mica- 
ceous schist, interspersed here and there with veins 
of quartz, and containing not unfrequently those 
dark-brown crystals called garnets, which greatly 
enhance the sparkling lustre of the mica. This 
rock, it may be remarked, embraces within its 
course the finest and most celebrated scenery in 
the Highlands, and rises, besides the Breadalbane 
peaks, into such distinguished summits as Ben 
Voirlich, Ben Ledi, Ben Venue, Ben Lomond, 
and all the bold serrated ridges of Argyleshire 
and Inverness-shire. It is of a very soft and 

E 



50 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

friable nature, and is easily weathered, forming 
on its surface a deep layer of rich soil, admirably 
adapted to the wants of an Alpine or Arctic 
vegetation. Being the prevailing formation in 
the Norwegian and Lapland mountains, as well 
as in the Arctic regions, it is obvious that the 
Scandinavian plants which emigrated southwards 
would find, wherever this rock cropped out suffi- 
ciently high above the surrounding surface, pecu- 
liarly favourable conditions for their growth. Hence 
on all the micaceous rocks in this country, and even 
in the Swiss Alps, we find a greater variety and a 
richer luxuriance of Scandinavian forms than on 
any other geological formation. We are particu- 
larly struck with this when we compare the rich 
and varied Alpine vegetation of the Breadalbane 
mica schists with the generally meagre and stunted 
vegetation of the Braemar and Ben Nevis granites. 
The unusual fertility of the Breadalbane range 
must also be ascribed to geographical position, 
highly advantageous in a meteorological point of 
view. The south-west winds, which come loaded 
with moisture from the Atlantic, meet with this 
great ridge running along the west of Perthshire, 
high above the other ranges, and, rushing up its 
cooler sides, condense their vapours, disengage 
their latent heat, and produce that mild climate, 
with almost continual rain or drizzling mist, in 
which Alpine plants delight during the period of 
growth ; whereas to the Aberdeenshire mountains 
the same winds come deprived of their moisture., 



I.] ALPINE PLANTS OF BEN LA WERS. 51 

and bring dry, cold weather. The common spe- 
cies of plants which are found on every hill of 
sufficient altitude in Britain, and which constitute 
their sole Alpine flora, are not only more abundant 
in individual forms on the Breadalbane mountains, 
but also attain more luxuriant proportions, so that 
they give a rich and beautiful appearance to the 
higher ranges in the glowing summer months, while, 
as previously intimated, an unusually large propor- 
tion of plants is exclusively restricted to this chain. 
Nor is it merely in rare phanerogamous vegetation 
that these mountains are rich ; they also possess a 
singularly varied and peculiar cryptogamic flora, 
several species of which are found nowhere else. 
Most of these plants may be found collected on 
the single peak of Ben Lawers ; and a botanist 
cannot spend a week more profitably and plea- 
santly than in exploring the huge sides and broad 
double summit of this hill. Every step leads to a 
botanical surprise, and almost every plant is either 
altogether new, or so rare and unfamiliar as to 
excite a thrill of gratification. If he has never 
before investigated Alpine vegetation, and if he be 
at all an enthusiast in his pursuit, he will expe- 
rience in the collection of these novelties and 
rarities some of the happiest moments in his life, 
j — moments worth years of artificial excitement, 
! banishing every sense of weariness and fatigue, and 
rendering, by the elevation of mind they produce, 
his perceptions of beauty in the scenery around 
.more acute and delightful. These moments soon 



E 2 



52 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

pass away, but they cease like the bubbling of a 
fountain, which leaves the waters purer for the 
momentary influence which had passed through 
them, — not like too many worldly joys, which 
ebb like an unnatural tide, and leave behind only 
loathsomeness and disgust. 

In the crevices of the highest rocks may be 
observed a curious lichen, called Verrucaria 
Hookeriy spreading over the blackened and har- 
dened turf in white turgid scales, which is quite 
different from any other lichen with which we are 
acquainted, and seems to be a special creation 
found nowhere else in the world. Curiously enough, 
there is associated with it a moss also peculiar 
to the spot, the Gymnostomum ccespititmm, which 
grows in dense brownish-green tufts, with nume- 
rous glossy capsules nestling among the leaves. 
The extreme rarity and isolation of these plants 
would almost warrant the inference, either that 
they are new creations which have not yet had 
time to secure possession of a wider extent of 
surface, or rather, perhaps, that they are aged 
plants, survivors of the original cryptogamic flora 
of the soil during the more recent geological 
epochs, which have lived their appointed cycle of 
life, and, yielding to the universal law of death, are 
about to disappear for ever. On the highest ridge 
of the mountain occurs, among the debris of rocks, 
the Draba rupestris, a very small, insignificant- 
looking plant, but important as being one of the [ 
most Arctic and Alpine plants in Scotland. It is 



1.1 ALPINE SANDWORT. 53 

only found here and in one locality in Sutherland- 
shire, and is unknown on the Continent of Europe. 
Passing down from the cairn that crowns the 
highest point of Ben Lawers, along the north- 
western shoulder of the hill, we are soon brought 
to a stand by several lofty precipices. Descending 
one of these, Ave come to a small corrie ; and here, 
upwards of 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, we 
are fairly bewildered with the beauty, the variety, 
and the luxuriance of the Alpine plants which bloom 
on every side. All the ordinary species are here 
congregated in lavish profusion, protected by im- 
mense shaggy beds of rare Alpine mosses, and 
nourished by the incessant dripping from the rocks 
overhead. We observe among them a few dense 
tufts of the Alpine sandwort (Alsine rubella) , 
and instantly we are down on our knees in the 
swamp to gather it, for one brief moment oblivious 
of the whole universe besides. My prize has cer- 
tainly little to recommend it ; for beauty it can 
scarcely be said to possess, the chickweed of our 
gardens, to which it is closely allied, having fully 
as pretty a flower ; but it is remarkable for that 
which gives value to the diamond — its exceeding 
rarity — only one other station for it being known 
in Britain, viz. the exposed cliffs of Ben Hope 
in Sutherlandshire. It belongs eminently to the 
boreal or Arctic type of vegetation, penetrating 
very far north, but reaching its southern limit on 
Ben Lawers. Scarcely has my enthusiasm had 
time to cool, when it is raised to a higher pitch, by 



54 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

seeing, in a cleft of the rock, the most celebrated 
of all our mountain flowers — the tiny Gentici7ia 
nivalis, or snowy gentian. With immeasurable 
thankfulness, and with a reverential and delicate 
touch, I pluck from the tiny clumps two specimens 
for myself, and two for favoured friends — no more ; 
for the genuine botanist has too great a regard for 
these interesting remnants of an almost extinct 
race — these little Aztecs of the flower world, which 
cling so tenaciously to Flora's skirts — to exter- 
minate them ruthlessly by taking more than he 
needs. If, humanly speaking, they are so precious 
in the eyes of their Creator, that He has taken such 
wonderful care to perpetuate them in these bleak 
spots, they ought surely to be invested with some- 
thing of a sacred character in our sight. What 
appeals so powerfully to the protection of man in 
the helpless form of the infant, ought to affect us 
in similar, though of course lesser degree, in the 
tenderness and fragility of these rare plants. The 
snowy gentian is the smallest of the Alpine flowers, 
usually averaging from half an inch to an inch in 
height, with a very minute blossom, forming a 
mere edge of deep blue, tipping the long calyx. 
Another station besides the Ben Lawers one has 
been found in the Caenlochan mountains, at the 
head of Glen Isla, where a porphyritic granite, 
rich in felspar, associated with a dark syenite, 
abounding in hornblende, is the prevailing rock. 
The Alps of Switzerland, however, seem to be the 
chosen haunt of this and all the rest of the gentian 



i.J ALPINE FORGET-ME-NOT. 55 

tribe. * There it grows in profusion among a lovely 
sisterhood of gentians, imparting a blue, deep as 
that of the sky above, to the higher pasturages, 
and often hides its head on the dizzy ledges of 
tremendous precipices. In ascending the lofty 
peaks of the Jungfrau and Monte Rosa, the guides 
not unfrequently resort to the innocent artifice of 
endeavouring to interest the traveller in its beauty, 
to distract his attention from the fearful abysses 
which the giddy path overhangs. 

There is one flower found in Ben Lawers which 
alone is worth all the fatigue of the ascent. This 
is the Alpine forget-me-not (Myosotis alpestris). It 
is far lovelier than its sister of the valleys — the 
well-known flower of friendship and poetry — its 
flowers being larger, more numerous, and closely 
set, forming a dense coronet or clustered head, 
that looks like a carcanet of rich turquoises. It 
does not grow beside running brooks, or in marshy 
spots, like its lowland congener, but high up on the 
dizzy ledges of almost inaccessible cliffs, where no 
one but the prying naturalist would look for floral 
beauty. Though somewhat abundant on the Swiss 
Alps, in Britain it is confined to the Breadalbane 
mountains, where it does not occur lower down 
than 3,000 feet. On Ben Lawers it is especially 
abundant and luxuriant, crowning with a garland 
of large blue tufts the precipitous crags which jut 
out from the western side of the hill. Fortunately 
for the preservation of the plant, it is a hazardous 
undertaking to gather it there, for the rocks are 



56 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

from 300 to 400 feet in perpendicular height, and 
one escapes from their ledges to a secure standing- 
place with much the same feelings that a man 
gets out of reach of a mortar just about to explode. 
In that elevated spot the summer is far advanced 
before it ventures to put forth its delicate flowers, 
so that it escapes the howling winds and the tem- 
pestuous mists, and blooms in a calm and serene 
atmosphere. The perfume which it exhales is very 
volatile, being sometimes almost imperceptible, and 
at other times very strong, and suggestive of the 
honey smell of the clover fields left far below. 
This is almost the only British Alpine plant pos- 
sessed of fragrance ; whereas, on the Swiss Alps, 
the majority of species are odoriferous, — a circum- 
stance which adds largely to the inspiring influence 
of a ramble on those stupendous hills. The absence 
of scented species on our mountains seems to be 
owing to the dark cloudy atmosphere which almost 
always broods over them ; while their presence in 
such profusion on the Alps is, on the other hand, 
due to the cloudless skies and the bright sunshine 
peculiar to the south, as well as to the diminished 
pressure of the atmosphere ; for the most fragrant 
kinds seldom prosper below a certain elevation, 
and when cultivated in gardens become nearly 
scentless. There is no plant which recalls more 
forcibly the beautiful though hackneyed lines of 
Gray than the Alpine forget-me-not. But is it 
really true that it blushes unseen, and wastes its 
fragrance on the desert air? Who are we, that 



I,] FINAL CAUSES OF ALPINE FLOWERS. 57 

we should arrogate to ourselves the right to call 
any existence vain and wasted that is wholly 
beyond our use, and removed from our admiration ? 
When shall we learn the humbling truth, con- 
stantly preached to ! us, that nature has not yet 
passed under our dominion, and that the smallest 
wild flower does not bloom for man, or any other 
creature, as its primary object. We have seen how 
little the admiration of man is regarded by nature, 
in the boundless prodigality with which she pours 
out her treasures in the loneliest and most desolate 
spots, remote from human habitations, and rarely, 
if ever, visited by human foot. There are many 
beautiful scenes left far off by themselves among 
the solitudes of the mountains, where, " unseen and 
unknown to all human beings, living nature fails 
not, from the glad morn to the silent eve, to call 
up all those sublime pageants of daily recurrence 
which show forth the Creator's unchangeable glory, 
in her ever-changing loveliness ; where the sunrise, 
unnoticed, clothes the mountains with regal robes 
of crimson and gold, and the red twilight, unad- 
mired, paints them in hues soft as those which 
pass over the cheek of the dying; where grateful 
flowers, ungathered, breathe forth their odours like 
the incense of a silent prayer, while answering dews 
descend, untainted, from the skies ; where storms 
unfeared come down in all their terror, and the 
unheard winds make a ceaseless wailing music 
over the lonely heights." And are we to think that 
all these beauties and wonders of creation are lost, 



58 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

i 

because no mortal is at hand to look on them with 
his cold eye and thankless heart ? No ! better to 
suppose that purer and holier eyes than ours are - 
for ever keeping watch in grateful admiration over 
the minutest flower, as over the remotest star, than 
to believe that the works of the Creator are ever 
without some one of His created beings to adore 
His majesty in their perfection. 

The Aberdeenshire mountains, from their great 
elevation and geographical position, lying in one of 
the directions taken by the Scandinavian flora in 
its descent to southern latitudes, exhibit a large 
proportion of Alpine forms, w T hich might have been 
still larger were it not for unfavourable geological 
and climatal conditions. They possess, in great 
luxuriance, on the sides and summits of their high- 
est peaks, no less than three species of shrubby 
lemon-coloured lichens highly peculiar to Iceland 
and Lapland, and found nowhere else in this 
country. The restriction of these cryptogams to 
so narrow a corner of our island — considering the 
facility with which their light, invisible spores may 
be disseminated by winds and waves, and their 
capacity of enduring the utmost extremes of tem- 
perature — can only be explained by the supposi- 
tion that the Cairngorm mountains first intercepted 
and retained them. Of phanerogamous plants, two 
at least are confined to this district. Of these, the 
Mulgediufn alpinum — a large, coarse plant of the 
thistle tribe, with erect stems from two to three feet 
high, producing deep blue florets late in summer — 



I.] BRAEMAR MOUNTAINS. 59 



£> 



grows in moist, rocky situations in Northern and 
Arctic Europe and Asia ; but in this country is 
restricted to the Loch-na-gar and Clova mountains, 
where it is rapidly disappearing. I gathered it 
several years ago in a locality where I believe it is 
now extinct, — the ledge of a sloping and rugged 
precipice on the north side of Ben-Muich-Dhu, 
down which a stream, rising in the upper ranges of 
the hill, falls in a succession of cascades for nearly 
3,000 feet into the waters of Loch Avon. The 
other is the Sonchus alpimts, or Alpine sow-thistle, 
an equally coarse plant. It is found on the same 
cliffs of Loch-na-gar on which the Mtdgedium 
grows. On the rocks overhanging a deep ravine, 
by which there is an ascent — though very laborious 
-—to the summit, may be found Saxifraga rivularis 
and PJileum alpinum; while the rare Lycopodium 
annotinum, Cormis suecica, and Drosera anglica may 
be gathered at their base in moist soil. 

On the Braemar mountains another Alpine plant 
of deeply interesting character is found. The 
Astragalus alpinus — a species of vetch — crowns the 
summit of Craigindal, a hill about 3,000 feet high, 
in the vicinity of Ben Avon and Ben-na-bourd. It 
is confined almost exclusively to this neighbour- 
hood, and is found there in two or three localities 
at considerable distances from each other, but 
characterised by the same geological formation, 
viz. a very pure, compact felspar. These moun- 
tains form the most southern limit of this plant. 
Tracing the Grampian chain for twenty or thirty 



60 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

miles south-east, until it forms the Clova group of 
hills, we find collected in that narrow space two 
other plants, each of which is restricted in its range 
to rocks of the same specific character, and there- 
fore comprised within a very limited area. One of 
these, the Oxytropis campestris — also a species of 
vetch, with pale yellow flower tinged with purple — 
is known by reputation, if not by sight, as one of 
the rarest of British plants, and therefore one of 
the most desirable acquisitions to the herbarium. 
Common on the mountain pastures and Alpine 
rocks in the Arctic regions of Europe, America, and 
Siberia, it is confined in Britain to one cliff in Clova, 
severed from the surrounding precipices by two 
deep fissures, apparently the result of extensive 
atmospheric disintegration. This cliff is composed 
of micaceous schist, peculiarly rich in mica, though 
of a dark smoky colour ; and being of a soft and 
friable nature, easily decomposed by the weather, 
forms a loose, deep, and very fertile soil. The other 
plant alluded to, viz. the Lychnis alpina, is also 
confined to a few isolated localities in the same 
range. It grows sparingly on the rocky table-land 
— about half an acre in extent — which crowns the 
summit of a hill called Little Gilrannoch, equi- 
distant between Glen Isla and Glen Dole. It is 
intimately connected with the lithological character 
of its habitat, for in several places on this plateau 
it springs from little crevices where there is hardly 
a particle of soil to nourish its roots ; and its range 
of distribution extends only as far as the rock pre- 



I.] CAENLOCHAN. Q [ 

serves its mineral character unchanged. This rock, 
which differs from the prevailing strata of the dis- 
trict, and from those in its immediate neighbourhood, 
is composed of compound felspar, very hard, and 
capable of resisting disintegration. In some places 
it is smooth and bare, like a pavement, and in 
others extremely corrugated and vitrified, as if it 
had undergone the action of fire. Though not 
found elsewhere in this country, the Alpine Lychnis 
has an extensive geographical range, being an 
Alpino-boreal plant, occurring both in Scandinavia 
and the Swiss Alps and Pyrenees. 

Caenlochan stands next, perhaps, to Ben Lawers 
in the number and interest of its Alpine rarities. 
On the summit of this range, close beside the 
bridle-path which winds over the heights from 
Glen Isla to Braemar, an immense quantity of the 
Highland azalea {Azalea prociimbens) grows among 
the shrubby tufts of the crowberry ; and when in 
the full beauty of its crimson bloom, about the 
beginning of August, it is a sight which many 
besides the botanist would go far to see. It is the 
only plant on the Highland mountains that reminds 
us of the rhododendrons which form the floral glory 
of the Swiss Alps, and especially of the Sikkim 
Himalayas. The stupendous cliffs at the sources of 
the Isla, formed of friable micaceous schist, and irri- 
gated by innumerable rills, trickling from the melt- 
ing snow above, are fringed with exceedingly rich 
tufts of Saussurea, Erigeron, Sibbaldia, Saxifi r aga 
nivalis, and whitened everywhere by myriads of 



62 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

Dry as octopetala and Alpine Cerastium. The scenery 
of this spot is truly magnificent. Huge mural 
precipices, between two and three thousand feet 
high, extend several miles on either side of a glen 
so oppressively narrow that it is quite possible to 
throw a stone from one side to the other. Dark 
clouds, like the shadows of old mountains passed 
away, continually float hither and thither in the 
vacant air, or become entangled in the rocks, in- 
creasing the gloom and mysterious awfulness of 
the gulf, from which the mingled sounds of many 
torrents, coursing far below, rise up at intervals 
like the groans of tortured spirits. A forest of 
dwarfed and stunted larches, planted as a cover 
for the deer, scrambles up the sides of the preci- 
pices for a short distance, their ranks sadly thinned 
by the numerous landslips and avalanches from 
the heights above. This region is seldom frequented 
by tourists, or even by botanists, as it lies far away 
from the ordinary routes, and requires a special 
visit. The late Professor Graham and the present 
accomplished Professor of Botany in the Edin- 
burgh University once spent, I believe, a fortnight 
in the shieling of Caenlochan, a lonely shepherd's 
hut at the foot of the range, built in the most primi- 
tive manner and with the rudest materials. They 
gathered rich spoils of Alpine plants in their daily 
wanderings among the hills, and so thoroughly in- 
doctrinated the shepherds and gamekeepers about 
the place in the nature of their pursuits, that they 
have all a knowledge of, and a sympathy with, the 



l.J MENZIESIA STATION. 63 

vascalum and herbarium, rare even in less secluded 
districts, though the schoolmaster is everywhere 
abroad. Every one of them knows the " Gimtion " 
(Gentiana nivalis) and the " Lechnis amena" (Lych- 
nis alpina), as they call them, as well as they know a 
grouse or sheep, and is proud at any time, without 
fee or reward, to conduct " botanisses " to the spots 
where these rarities are found. 

In the northern extremity of Perthshire, between 
Loch Rannoch and Loch Erricht, on the north- 
eastern brow of the mountain called the Sow of 
Atholl, is the well-known station for the very rare 
Menziesia coerulea y a species of heath distinguished 
by its large blue bells. This treeless waste of 
elevated moorland, characterised by Maculloch as 
one of the most desolate regions in Europe, for- 
gotten by nature, without a trace or a recollection 
of human life, once formed the site of the great 
Caledonian forest, which, in all probability, shel- 
tered in its moist and shady recesses plants found 
nowhere else in Britain, and peculiar to the 
swampy forests of Norway and Lapland. Of this 
hyperborean vegetation, the beautiful Menziesia 
and the Rubus arcticns are now the sole surviving 
relics. They strikingly illustrate the influence of 
man in extirpating or limiting the distribution of 
plants, by levelling forests, draining marshes, and 
thus rendering a particular region unsuitable to 
the vegetation of an excessive climate, by intro- 
ducing a more equable temperature, greater 
warmth in winter and greater cold in summer, 



(> 4 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

than formerly prevailed. To the general naturalist 
this is one of the most interesting districts in 
Britain. About nine miles from Kinloch Rannoch, 
on the south side of the loch, there is a thick, 
dark pine-forest known as the Black Wood, which 
is also a relic of the great Caledonian forest ; 
many of its trees being of great age, and so large 
as to require the outstretched arms of two men 
to span them. In the damp air of this forest, 
where there is an abundant supply of vegetable 
food in all stages of decay — favoured by the in- 
tense heat of summer and the long period of 
winter torpor — an astonishingly large number of 
subalpine insects occur, which are unknown else- 
where. It is, in fact, the paradise of the ento- 
mologist, for though the species are rare, the 
number of individuals is unusually large. Many 
of them are of considerable size, and possess very 
attractive colouring ; while others exhibit curious 
habits and modes of development. The Formica 
congerens builds its huge anthills of pine-needles 
here as in Norway. One of the most abundant 
insects in the place is the Longicorn beetle (Astino- 
mus cedilis), which is known in Sweden, and, strange 
to say, in Rannoch also, as " the timberman," on 
account of its frequenting the timber-cutting yards, 
and even the doorposts of the houses. Its horns 
are prodigiously long, about four times the length 
of its body, and remind one more of tropical 
insects than any similar development that occurs 
in this country. Trichius fasciatus, known to the 



I.] ARCTIC WILLOW. 65 

villagers as the " bee-beetle," from the resemblance 
of the velvety black bands on its yellow downy 
body to those of the common humble-bee, is also 
frequent in the neighbourhood, In short, upwards 
of a score of insects peculiar to the neighbourhood 
are essentially boreal forms. The parallelism be- 
tween them and the insects of Norway and Sweden 
is of the closest character, and is thus a singular 
confirmation of the evidence afforded by some of 
the plants of the district that, in this corner of 
Britain, we have, in the relics of the Caledonian 
forest, the remains of a Scandinavian flora and 
fauna that once spread over the whole country. 

Although neither tree nor shrub is capable of 
existing on the mountain summits, we find several 
representatives there of the lowland forests. The 
Arctic willow (Salix herbaced) occurs on all the 
ridges, creeping along the mossy ground for a 
few inches, and covering it with its rigid shoots 
and small round leaves. It is a curious circum- 
stance, that a regular sequence of diminishing 
forms of the willow tribe may be traced in an 
ascending line, from the stately "siller saugh wi' 
downie buds," that so appropriately fringes the 
banks of the lowland river, up to the diminutive 
species that scarcely rises above the ground on 
the tops of the Highland hills. The dwarf birch, 
also, not unfrequently occurs in sheltered situations 
on the Grampians, among fragments of rocks 
thickly carpeted with the snowy tufts of the rein- 
deer moss. It is a beautiful miniature of its 

F 



66 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

graceful sister, the queen of Scottish woods, the 
whole tree — roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, 
and fruit — being easily gummed on a sheet of 
common note-paper ; and yet it stands for all 
that the Esquimaux and Laplanders know of 
growing timber. In the Arctic plains the mem- 
bers of the highest botanical families are entirely 
superseded by the lowest and least organized 
plants. Lichens and mosses are there not only 
more important economically, but have greater 
influence in affecting the appearance of the scenery, 
than even willows and birches. 

Of ferns there are several very interesting spe- 
cies on the Highland mountains. A peculiar form 
occurs in sheltered places on most of the higher 
summits, which for a long time was supposed to 
be a variety of the common lady-fern. It is now 
ascertained to be a distinct species, and is called 
Polypodium alpestre ; its cluster of spores being 
naked and destitute of a covering in all the stages 
of growth. It is especially abundant on Loch-na- 
gar and the Cairngorm range, where it was dis- 
covered several years ago by Mr. Backhouse of 
York. On rocky slopes, at a height of about 2,000 
feet, occurs the Alpine holly fern {Polystichum Lon- 
chitis), which is peculiarly adapted to its rigorous 
climate by its slow rigid habit of growth, and the 
persistency of its old fronds. On Ben Lawers it is 
very abundant. The Woodsia hyperborea grows in 
small compact tufts on the ledges of almost in- 
accessible precipices. It is confined almost exclu- 



I.] ALPINE FERNS. 67 

sively to the Breadalbane mountains, where it is 
found very sparingly indeed. But the rarest and 
most interesting of all the Alpine ferns is the 
Cystopteris montana, a large, handsome, much- 
divided species, bearing a considerable resemblance 
to the Poly podium calcareum. It appears at the 
beginning of June, and fades early in August. It 
does not grow in crevices of rocks, like its con- 
geners, but on the Alpine turf at a height of about 
3,000 feet. On Ben Lawers I once observed an 
extensive patch of it, containing thousands of spe- 
cimens ; but when I next visited the spot, the turf 
had been stripped off and the plant extirpated — 
not a vestige of it to be seen. It is fortunately, 
however, abundant on the wild, almost unknown, 
mountain plateaux which stretch from the head of 
Loch Tay to Loch Lomond — such as Benteskerny, 
Mael-nan-tarmonach, Maelghyrdy, Corry Dhu- 
clair, &c. I gathered some fine specimens of it 
in a ravine while crossing the Wengern Alp, in 
Switzerland, some years ago ; and subsequently in 
the tremendous defile of the Naerodal, at the head 
of the Sogne Fjord in Norway. Its original centre 
of distribution seems to be the Rocky Mountains 
of America, for there it occurs in the utmost 
luxuriance and profusion. 

It would be improper not to notice very 
briefly the rich and varied cryptogamic vege- 
tation which clothes the highest summits, and 
spreads, more like an exudation of the rocks than 
the produce of the soil, over spots where no 

F 2 



68 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

flowering plant could possibly exist. This vege- 
tation is permanent, and is not affected by the 
changes of the seasons : it may, therefore, be 
collected at any time, from January to December. 
It is almost unnecessary to say, that the Alpine 
mosses and lichens are as peculiar and distinct in 
their character from those of the valleys as the 
Alpine flowers themselves. They are all eminently 
Arctic ; and, though they occur very sparingly in 
scattered patches on the extreme summits of the 
Highland hills, th$y are the common familiar 
vegetation of the Lapland and Iceland plains, and 
cover Greenland and Melville Island with the only 
verdure they possess. Some of them are very 
lovely: as, for instance, the saffron Solorina, which 
spreads over the bare earth, on the highest and 
most exposed ridges, its rich rosettes of vivid 
green above and brilliant orange below ; the daisy- 
flowered cup lichen, with its filigreed yellow stems, 
and large scarlet knobs ; and the geographical 
lichen, which enamels all the stones and rocks with 
its bright black and primrose-coloured mosaic. 
Some are useful in the arts, as the Iceland moss, 
which occurs on all the hills, from an elevation of 
2,000 feet, and becomes more luxuriant the higher 
we ascend. On some mountains it is so abundant 
that a supply sufficiently large to diet, medicinally, 
all the consumptive patients in Scotland could 
be gathered in a few hours. A few lichens and 
mosses, such as Hooker's Verrucaria, and Haller's 
Hypnurn, are interesting to the botanist, on account 



I.] ALPINE MOSSES AND LICHENS. 69 

of their extreme rarity and isolation. Some are 
interesting on account of their associations, as the 
Parmelia Fahliifiensis y which was first observed on 
the dreary rocks and heaps of ore and debris near 
the copper mines of Fahlun, in Sweden — a district 
so excessively barren that even lichens in general 
refuse to vegetate there, yet inexpressibly dear to 
the great Linnaeus, because there he wooed and 
won the beautiful daughter of the learned phy- 
sician Moraeus. And the curious tribe of the 
Gyrophoras or Tripe de Roche lichens, looking like 
pieces of charred parchment, so exceedingly abun- 
dant on all the rocks, will painfully recall the fearful 
hardships and sufferings of Sir John Franklin and 
his party in the Arctic regions. It is a strange cir- 
cumstance, by the way, that most of the lichens 
and mosses of the Highland summits are dark- 
coloured, as if scorched by the fierce unmitigated 
glare of the sunlight. This gloomy Plutonian 
vegetation gives a very singular appearance to 
the scenery, especially to the top of Ben Nevis, 
w r here almost every stone and rock is blackened 
by large masses of Andreas, Gyrophoras \ and 
Parmelias. 

The most marked and characteristic of all the 
cryptogamic plants which affect the mountain 
summits is the woolly-fringe moss. This plant 
grows in the utmost profusion, frequently acres in 
extent, rounding the angular shoulders of the hills 
with a padding of the softest upholstery work of 
nature ; for which considerate service the botanist, 



70 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

who has previously toiled up painfully amid endless 
heaps of loose stones, is exceedingly grateful. 
Growing in such abundance, far above the line 
where the higher social plants disappear, it seems 
a wise provision for the protection of the exposed 
sides and summits of the hills from the abrading 
effects of the storm. Snow-wreaths lie cushioned 
upon these mossy plateaux in midsummer, and 
soak them through with their everlasting drip, 
leaving on the surface from which they have retired 
the moss flattened and blackened as if burnt by 
fire. With this moss I have rather a curious asso- 
ciation, with a description of which it may be worth 
while to wind up my desultory remarks, as a spe- 
cimen of what the botanist may have sometimes to 
experience in his pursuit of Alpine plants. Some 
years ago, while botanizing with a friend over the 
Breadalbane mountains, we found ourselves, a little 
before sunset, on the summit of Ben Lawers, so 
exhausted with our day's work that we were utterly 
unable to descend the south side to the inn at the 
foot, and resolved to bivouac on the hill for the 
night. The sappers and miners of the Ordnance 
Survey, having to reside there for several months, 
had constructed square open enclosures, like sheep- 
folds, in the crater-like hollow at the top, to shelter 
them from the northern blasts. In one of these 
roofless caravansaries we selected a spot on which 
to spread our couch. Fortunately, there was fuel 
conveniently at hand in the shape of bleached 
fragments of tent-pins and lumps of good English 



I.J BIVOUAC OX TOP OF BEN LAIVERS. 71 

coal, proving that our military predecessors had 
supplied themselves in that ungenial spot with a 
reasonable share of the comforts of Sandhurst and 
Addiscombe ; and my companion volunteered to 
kindle a fire, while I went in search of materials 
for an extemporaneous bed. As heather, which 
forms the usual spring-mattress of the belated 
traveller, does not occur on the summits of the 
higher hills, we were obliged to do without it — 
much to our regret; for a heather-bed (I speak 
from experience) in the full beauty of its purple 
flowers, newly gathered, and skilfully packed close 
together, in its growing position, is as fragrant and 
luxurious a couch as any sybarite could desire. 
I sought a substitute in the woolly-fringe moss, 
which I found covering the north-west shoulder 
of the hill in the utmost profusion. It had this 
disadvantage, however, that, though its upper 
surface was very dry and soft, it was beneath, 
owing to its viviparous mode of growth, a mass of 
wet decomposing peat. My object, therefore, was 
so to arrange the bed that the dry upper layer 
would be laid uniformly uppermost ; but it was 
frustrated by the enthusiasm excited by one of the 
most magnificent sunsets I had ever witnessed. It 
caused me completely to forget my errand. The 
western gleams had entered into my soul, and 
etherealized me above all creature wants. Never 
shall I forget that sublime spectacle ; it brims with 
beauty even now my soul. Between me and the 
west, that glowed with unutterable radiance, rose a 



72 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

perfect chaos of wild, dark mountains, touched here 
and there into reluctant splendour by the slanting 
sunbeams. The gloomy defiles were filled with a 
golden haze, revealing in flashing gleams of light 
the lonely lakes and streams hidden in their bosom; 
while, far over to the north, a fierce cataract that 
rushed down a rocky hill-side into a sequestered 
glen, frozen by the distance into the gentlest of all 
gentle things, reflected from its snowy waters a 
perfect tumult of glory. I watched in awe-struck 
silence the going down of the sun, amid all this 
pomp, behind the most distant peaks — saw the 
few fiery clouds that floated over the spot where 
he disappeared fade into the cold dead colour of 
autumn leaves, and finally vanish in the mist of 
even — saw the purple mountains darkening into 
the Alpine twilight, and twilight glens and streams 
tremulously glimmering far below, clothed with the 
strangest lights and shadows by the newly risen 
summer moon. Then, and not till then, did I 
recover from my trance of enthusiasm to begin in 
earnest my preparations for the night's rest. I 
gathered a sufficient quantity of the moss to pre- 
vent our ribs suffering from too close contact with 
the hard ground ; but, unfortunately, it was now 
too dark to distinguish the wet peaty side from the 
dry, so that the whole was laid down indiscrimi- 
nately. Over this heap of moss we spread a plaid, 
and lying down with our feet to the blazing fire, 
Indian fashion, we covered ourselves with another 
plaid, and began earnestly to court the approaches 



I.] COLD AND SLEEPLESSNESS. 73 

of the balmy god. Alas ! all our elaborate pre- 
parations proved futile ; sleep would not be wooed. 
The heavy dews began to descend, and soon pene- 
trated our upper covering, while the moisture of 
the peaty moss, squeezed out by the pressure of 
our bodies, exuded from below ; so that between 
the two we might as well have been in "--the pack" 
at Ben Rhydding. To add to our discomfort, the 
fire smouldered and soon went out with an angry 
hiss, incapable of contending with the universal 
moisture. It was a night in the middle of July, 
but there were refrigerators in the form of two 
huge masses of hardened snow on either side of us; 
so the temperature of our bedchamber, when our 
warming-pan grew cold, may be easily conceived. 
For a long while we tried to amuse ourselves with 
the romance and novelty of our position, sleeping, 
as we were, in the highest attic of her Majesty's 
dominions, on the very top of the dome of Scotland. 
We gazed at the large liquid stars, which seemed 
unusually near and bright ; not glimmering on the 
roof of the sky, but suspended far down in the blue 
concave, like silver lamps. There were the grand 
old constellations, Cassiopeia, Auriga, Cepheus, 
each evoking a world of thought, and " painting, as 
it were, in everlasting colours on the heavens the 
religion and intellectual life of Greece." Our astro- 
nomical musings and the monotonous murmurings 
of the mountain streams at last lulled our senses 
into a kind of doze, for sleep it could not be called. 
How long we lay in this unconscious state we 



74 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

knew not, but we were suddenly startled out of it 
by the loud whirr and clucking cry of a ptarmigan 
close at hand, aroused perhaps by a nightmare 
caused by its last meal of crude whortleberries. 
All further thoughts of sleep were now out of the 
question ; so, painfully raising ourselves from our 
recumbent posture, with a cold grueing shiver, 
rheumatism racking in every joint, we set about 
rekindling the fire, and preparing our breakfast. 
In attempting to converse, we found, to our dismay, 
that our voices were gone. We managed, however, 
by the help of signs, and a few hoarse croaks, to 
do all the talking required in our culinary con- 
jurings ; and, after thawing ourselves at the fire, 
and imbibing a quantity of hot coffee, boiled, it 
may be remarked, in a tin vasculum, we felt our- 
selves in a condition to descend the hill. A dense 
fog blotted out the whole of creation from our view, 
except the narrow spot on which we stood ; and, 
just as we were about to set out, we were astonished 
to hear, far off through the mist, human voices 
shouting. While we were trying to account for 
this startling mystery in such an unlikely spot and 
hour, we were still more bewildered by suddenly 
seeing, on the brink of the steep rocks above us, a 
vague, dark shape, magnified by the fog into por- 
tentous dimensions. Here, at last, we thought, is 
the far-famed spectre of the Brocken, come on a 
visit to the Scottish mountains. Another, and yet 
another appeared, with, if possible, more savage 
mien and gigantic proportions. We knew not what 



I.] SPECTRES OF THE BROCK EN. 75 

to make of it. Fortunately, our courage was saved 
at the critical moment by the phantoms vanishing 
round the rocks to appear before us in a few 
minutes real botanical flesh and blood, clothed, as 
usual, with an utter disregard of the aesthetics of 
dress, The enthusiasm of our new friends for 
Alpine plants had caused them to anticipate the 
sun, for it was yet only three o'clock in the 
morning. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE INTERMEDIATE OR HEATHER REGION. 

The botanist regards the rapid progress of agricul- 
ture in these days with feelings somewhat akin to 
those which once convulsed the placid bosoms of 
the Lake poets at the prospect of that " insane 
substruction," a railway amid the beautiful solitudes 
of Windermere. He sees, with a sinking of the 
heart, which no hope of increased gain to the 
neighbouring gastric region can allay, the wave 
of cultivation stealthily creeping up the hill-side 
higher and higher with each yearly tide. The 
beautiful green knolls around which superstitious 
eyes used to see the fairies dancing in the mid- 
summer moonlight have been levelled and taken 
in as part of the surrounding cornfield. The grey 
Druidical stones which our ancestors reverently 
spared, and around which the most grasping farmer 
used to leave a broad margin of natural sward, 
have been blasted to macadamize a road or build 
a dyke, in defiance of the curse pronounced against 
those who should desecrate these old bones of an 
extinct faith ; and the ground on which they stood 
has been planted with potatoes or turnips. From 



chap. II.] FASTNESS OF WASTE LANDS. 77 

this universal utilization of the soil the poet and 
painter have suffered, but not to the same extent 
as the botanist ; for, besides the loss of the beautiful 
and the picturesque, he has to deplore the gradual 
diminution of the number of his favourite wild 
flowers in this country. Meres and lochs in which 
local aquatic plants luxuriated have been drained, 
woods have been cut down, and railways and high- 
roads carried through nooks that sheltered the last 
survivors of an ancient flora. For the extermina- 
tion of these interesting rarities no quantity of 
weeds introduced among seed from other countries 
can compensate. 

With these conservative instincts I deeply sym- 
pathise ; but I rejoice that, while some injury has 
been done in certain places to special studies, far 
more land has been left untouched than has been 
"improved." As ocular demonstration is more 
convincing than any amount of logical argument, 
let me ask the botanist who is groaning amid the 
wheat and turnip fields of the midland counties to 
accompany me to the top of a hill, say in the high- 
lands of Perthshire. From this superior standing- 
point let him look around, and he will be at once 
convinced of the utter groundlessness of his bota- 
nical fears. How vast the dominion of Nature ! 
how insignificant the portion that has been re- 
claimed ! For all the evidence of man's occupancy 
that appears within the boundless horizon, he 
might imagine himself the solitary tenant of an 
alien world, monarch of all he surveys. A few 



78 v HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

spots of pale green hardly seen among the heather; 
a narrow strip of cultivated valley obscured by 
the shadow of overhanging mountains ; the silver 
thread of a stream running through a thin fringe of 
verdure ; and, all around, the brown interminable 
wastes lengthening as he gazes, until their wild 
billows subside on the blue shore of the distant 
horizon ! This is what he sees, and a more hum- 
bling spectacle I cannot imagine. The powerless- 
ness of man's efforts amid the stern forces of Nature 
could not be more strikingly exhibited. The most 
rabid opponent of utilitarianism will own that a 
few scratches, more or less, of the plough, however 
important to man, are of very little consequence 
amid these immeasurable deserts. 

Nature takes ample care of her own rights. In 
the rigour of her climate and the ruggedness of her 
soil she imposes barriers upon the onward march 
of improvement which cannot be overleaped. It 
will not pay to cultivate the largest portion of our 
country. The most powerful artificial manures, 
and the most skilful " high farming," will not suf- 
fice to extract a remunerative produce from our 
more elevated hills and moorlands. Whatever the 
pressure of population may be, we must leave 
these solitudes to their primitive wildness, and give 
them over in fee-simple to the grouse and Alpine 
hare. They are the last strongholds into which 
beleaguered Nature, everywhere else subdued, has 
withdrawn behind her glacis and battlements of 
mountain ridges in grim defiance of the advancing 



II.] USES OF THE MOORLANDS. 79 

conqueror. Nor is it difficult to find reasons for 
putting up this trespass-notice and restricting man's 
occupancy of the earth. The lofty mountain ranges 
have been piled up, and the rugged desolation of 
the moorlands spread out, because the soul requires 
some great outlets of this kind to escape from the 
petty cares and conventionalities of civilized life, 
and to expand in sublime imaginings towards the 
infinity of God. While to those who do not feel 
this craving for something higher and purer than 
they find in the every-day pursuits of life, and 
who, like good Bishop Burnet, consider hills and 
moors unsightly excrescences and deformities upon 
the face of nature — evidences of the ruinous effects 
of the Fall — it may be sufficient to say, in 
justification of this reckless waste of land, that 
there is a physical as well as an aesthetic necessity 
for it. There is vicarious sacrifice in the arrange- 
ments of inanimate nature, as well as in the laws 
of human life. There is a beautiful balance by 
which barrenness is set over against fertility, and 
life against death. Some spots must be bleak and 
desolate in order that other spots may be clothed 
with verdure and beauty. These hills and moors 
are intended to be not only ornamental, but useful ; 
not only picture-galleries for the poet and painter, 
but also storehouses of fertility and wealth for the 
farmer and merchant. Their towering crests and 
spongy heaths arrest the vapours which float in 
the higher regions of the atmosphere, collect and 
filter them in reservoirs in their bosoms, and send 



80 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

them down in copious streams to water the low 
grounds, and spread over the barren plains the 
rich alluvium which they bear away in solution 
from their sides ; while the fresh cool breezes, that 
play around the summits, sweep down with health- 
ful influences into the hot and stagnant air of the 
confined valleys. In many ways they perform a 
most important part in the economy of nature, 
and by their means is preserved the fertility of 
extensive regions which would otherwise become 
hopelessly sterile. 

To those who are accustomed to the rich beauty 
of lowland scenery the treeless, desolate aspect of 
the moorlands may appear harsh and uninviting. 
They miss there the objects which they are accus- 
tomed to see, and around which have gathered the 
associations of years. There is apparently nothing 
within the circle of vision to arrest the eye or 
interest the mind. All seems one dead dull mono- 
tony, an interminable dark level, an eye-wearying 
waste, marked only but not relieved by grey rocks 
and shallow bogs reflecting an ashen sky. This 
first unfavourable impression, however, is sure to 
be dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance. 
Apart from the charm of contrast which most 
persons find in circumstances differing widely from 
those in which their life is usually spent, and the 
interest which contemplative minds find in all 
bare, solitary places, there are countless objects of 
attraction and beauties of hue and form which fill 
up the seeming void, and make these apparently 



II.] CHANGES OF THE SEASONS. 81 

blank pages of nature most suggestive even to the, 
dullest intellect. The seasons, marching with their 
slow solemn steps over the moorlands, may leave 
behind them none of those striking changes which 
mark their progress in the haunts of man. The 
elements of the scenery are too simple to be very 
susceptible to the vicissitudes of the year. But, still, 
there are some tokens of their presence ; and these 
are all the more interesting that they do not reveal 
themselves at once to a cold casual gaze, but re- 
quire reverently to be sought out. Nowhere is the 
grass so vividly green in early spring-time as along 
the banks of the moorland stream, or on the shady 
hill-side, on which the cloud reposes its snowy 
cheek all day long and weeps away its soul in silent 
tears. How gorgeous is that miracle of blossoming 
when Summer with her blazing torch has kindled 
the dull brown heather, and every twig and spray 
burst into blushing beauty, and spread wave after 
wave of rosy bloom over the moors, until the very 
heavens themselves catch the reflection, and bend 
enamoured over it with double loveliness ! How 
rich, under the mild blue skies of Autumn, are the 
russet hues of the withered ferns and mosses that 
cluster on the braes or creep over the marshes, 
imparting a mimic sunshine to the scene in the 
dullest day ! How exquisitely pure is the un- 
trodden snow in the hollows which the winds heap 
into gracefully swelling wreaths and mark with 
endless curves of beauty ! Wander over one of 
the Perthshire moors from break of morn to close 

G 



82 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

of day, and you will no longer stigmatize it as a 
monotonous uninteresting waste. From sunrise to 
sunset the appearance of the landscape is never 
precisely the same for two successive hours. Like 
a human face, changing its expression with every 
thought and feeling, it alters its mood as cloud or 
sunshine passes over it. Now it is bathed in light, 
under which every cliff and heather-bush shine out 
with the utmost distinctness ; anon it lies cold and 
desolate, unutterably forlorn and forsaken when the 
sky is overcast. At one time it is invested with a 
transparent atmosphere in which the commonest 
and meanest objects are idealized as in a picture ; 
at another, great masses of sharply-defined shadows 
from the stooping clouds lie like pine-forests on the 
bright hill-sides ; or a flood of molten gold, welling 
over the brim of a thunder-cloud, streams down 
and irradiates with concentrated glory a single 
spot, which gleams out from the surrounding gloom 
like a lovely isle in a stormy ocean. And the sun- 
rises and sunsets — those grand rehearsals of the 
conflagration of the last day — who can describe 
them in an amphitheatre so magnificent, a region 
so peculiarly their own ! How inexpressibly sweet 
is the lingering tremulousness of the gloaming, 
that quiet ethereal Sabbath-like pause of nature in 
which the smallest and most distant sounds are 
heard, not loud and harsh, but with a fairy dis- 
tinctness exquisitely harmonized with the holiness 
of the hour ! There are no such twilights in 
England ; they belong only to northern latitudes, 



ii.] BEAUTIFUL SCENES. 83 

where the light, if it be colder and feebler, com- 
pensates by its longer stay, and its heavenly purity 
and beauty at the close. And how full of weird, 
wild mystery is the scene as the evening grows 
darker; how vast and vague and awful in the 
uncertain light are the forms of the hills ; how 
ghostly are the shadows ! There Night is a 
visible form, and her solitude is like the presence 
of a god. 

Nor is the moorland altogether dependent for its 
beauty upon atmospheric effects. It hides within 
its jealous embrace many a lovely spot on which 
one comes unexpectedly with all the interest of dis- 
covery. There are little dells where a streamlet 
has lured up from the valley, by the magic of its 
charms, a cluster of rowan-trees, whose red berries 
dance like fire in the broken foam of the waterfalls, 
or a group of tiny, white-armed birches that always 
seem to be combing their fragrant tresses in the 
clear mirror of its linns. There are moorland 
tarns, sullen and motionless as lakes of the dead, 
lying deep in sunless rifts, where the very ravens 
build no nests, and where no trace of life or 
vegetation is seen — associated with many a wild 
tradition, accidents of straying feet, the suicide 
of love, guilt, despair. And there are lochs beau- 
tiful in themselves, and gathering around them a 
world of beauty ; their shores fringed with the 
tasselled larch, their shallows tesselated with the 
broad green leaves and alabaster chalices of the 
water-lily; and their placid depths mirroring the 

G 2 



84 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

crimson gleam of the heather hills and the golden 
clouds overhead. 

I have often been struck, when wandering over 
the moors, with the wonderful harmonies of the 
various objects. The birds and beasts that inhabit 
the scene are clothed with fur or plumage of a 
brown russet hue, to harmonize them with the colour 
of the heathy wastes, and thus to facilitate their 
escape from their enemies. Nor is this harmony 
confined to the form and hue of the living creatures 
— it is also strikingly displayed in their peculiar 
cries. All the voices of the moorland are in- 
describably plaintive — suggestive of melancholy 
musings and memories. No one can hear them, 
even on the sunniest day, without a nameless thrill 
of sadness ; and, when multiplied by the echoes 
through the mist or the storm, they seem like 
cries of distress or wailings of woe from another 
world. In them the very spirit of the solitude seems 
to find expression. None of our familiar songbirds 
ever wander to the moorland. It is tenanted 
by a different tribe, and the line of demarcation 
between them is sharply defined. In the valley 
and the plain the thrush and the chaffinch fill the 
air with their music ; but, as you climb the moun- 
tain-barrier of the horizon, you are greeted on 
the frontier by the wild cries of the plovers which 
hover around you in ceaseless gyrations, following 
your steps far beyond their marshy domains. 
These are the outposts — the sentinels of the wild 
— and jealously do they perform their office. No 



II.] THE PLOVER. 85 

stranger appears in sight, or sets a foot within 
their territories, without eliciting the warning cry. 
Well might the Covenanters curse them, for many 
a grey head, laid low in blood by the persecuting 
dragoons, would have escaped, securely hidden 
among the green rushes and peat-bogs, but for 
their importunate revelation of the secret. Beyond 
the haunts of this bird stretches a wide illimitable 
circle of silence, in which only a shrill solitary cry 
now and then is heard, rippling the stillness like a 
stone cast into the bosom of a stream, and leaving 
it, when the wave of sound has subsided, deeper 
than before. And how absolute is that silence ! 
It seems to breathe — to become tangible. The 
solitude is like that of mid-ocean — not a human 
being in sight, not a trace or a recollection of man 
visible in all the horizon ; from break of day to 
eventide no sound in the air but the sigh of the 
breeze round the lonely heights, the muffled mur- 
mur of some stream flashing through the heather, 
or the long, lazy lapse of a ripple on the beach of 
some nameless tarn. 

Here, if anywhere, you can be lulled on the lap 
of a placid antiquity. These grey northern moors 
are immeasurably old. The gneissic rock that 
underlies them is one of the oldest in the records 
of geology — the lowest floor of the most ancient 
sea, in whose water its particles were first pre- 
cipitated, to be afterwards indurated by chemical 
action, or mechanical pressure, into their present 
compact mass. Here was, probably, the first dry 



8 6 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

land that appeared above the surface of the ocean. 
Long before the Alps upreared their snowy peaks 
from the deep, and while an unbroken sea tossed 
its billows over the spots where the Andes and 
Himalayas now tower to heaven, these moors lay 
stretched out beneath the disconsolate skies, as 
islands reposing on a shoreless ocean, not clothed, 
as at present, with brown heather and spongy 
moss, but presenting an aspect of still drearier 
desolation. They were all that in the earliest 
geologic epochs represented the beauty and power 
of Great Britain — the first instalment of that 
mighty empire which Britannia gained from the 
deep. Here, where Nature is all in all and man 
is nothing, you expect to find permanence. Time 
seems to have sailed over these moors with folded 
wing, leaving no more trace of his flight than the 
passage of the shadow over the dial-stone ; and 
yet, calm and stedfast as the scene may appear, 
it has passed through many a stormy cataclysm, it 
has witnessed many a startling transition. On rock 
and mound the careful observer will find those 
strange hieroglyphics in which Nature's own hand 
has chronicled the eventful history of her youth. 
Here, where the sheep are quietly nibbling the 
green sward, the sea once broke in foam on the 
shore ; there, on that elevated knoll — if the surface 
were fully exposed — veins of granite thrust up by 
some violent internal convulsion might be seen 
reticulating the gneiss as with a gigantic network, 
showing the mighty levers employed by Nature in 



II.] RELICS OF ANCIENT ^GLA CIERS. 8 7 

piling up her Cyclopean masonry. Yonder the 
rocks are smoothed and polished, or else marked 
with grooves and scratches, telling of glaciers that 
passed over them, and suggesting to the imagina- 
tion the picture of that strange era in the past 
history of our country, when from Snowdon and 
the Yorkshire moors to Ronaldsay and Cape Wrath 
eternal winter reigned with sternest rigour, and the 
Arctic bear hunted the narwhal amid the icebergs 
and icefloes that drifted past the coasts of Sussex 
and Hampshire. Yonder granite boulders that 
strew the hill-side, differing in mineral character 
from the prevailing formation of the region, and 
which, according to the Ossian mythology, fell from 
the leaky creel of a giant Finn striding over the 
heights one day to take vengeance with this rude 
but effective ammunition against an offending 
neighbour, the geologist tells us were transported 
to this place from a granitic district twenty miles 
distant on the back of a slow-moving glacier. And 
the elevated conical mounds, or moraines, which 
you meet with here and there, are accumulations 
of mud and gravel, marking in enduring characters 
the terminations of those vanished ice-streams. 
Turning from the distant silent ages of the geo- 
logist to the early lisping ages of our own race, we 
find numerous traces of these also chronicled on 
the moors. The labour of the peasant often dis- 
closes, deeply embedded in the moss, large trunks 
of birch, alder, and fir, masses of foliage, cones and 
nuts in a perfect state of preservation, the fossils of 



88 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

the peat-bog. These, like the kindred relics of 
the coal-fields, tell us a tale of luxuriant forests 
clothing, like dark thunder-clouds, desolate tracts 
where not a single tree is now to be seen, and 
scarcely a juniper-bush can grow. Through the 
underwood of these primaeval forests the wild 
boar roamed, and the shaggy bison bellowed, 
and the long dismal howl of the wolf made the 
silence of midnight hideous, ages before the fan- 
fare of the Roman trumpets startled the echoes 
of the hills. Nor are the traces of man's own 
presence in those remote times absent from the 
scene. The sides of some of the hills, which 
time out of mind have been abandoned irre- 
trievably to the dusky heather, bear evident marks 
of tillage ; but the comparative fertility of these 
stony spots only proves the wretched state of the 
agriculture of the Aborigines. Here and there 
you stumble upon a grey moss-grown obelisk, a 
cairn, or a cromlech — dim and undated relics, lying, 
like the fragments of an old world, on the twilight 
shores of the sea of time. Beside or under these 
we find the hatchet of stone, the arrow-head of 
flint, or the quern, over which no history or tra- 
dition sheds light. Who owned these rude imple- 
ments ? We cannot tell. Every recollection of the 
people who used them is swept away. Under the 
cromlech or the cairn they lay down and took their 
long, last sleep, without a thought of posterity, or a 
care as to the conclusions future ages might arrive 
at regarding the scanty memorials they left behind. 



II.] COMMON HE A THER. 8 9 

The vegetation of the moorlands is exceedingly- 
varied and interesting. Its character is interme- 
diate between the Arctic and Germanic type, 
reminding one, in the prevalence of evergreen, 
thick, glossy-leaved plants, of the flora of Italy, 
which seems, from the evidence of ancient records, 
to have undergone a remarkable change in modern 
times, and now approximates in its general physi- 
ognomy to the flora of dry mountain regions. The 
plant which above all others is characteristic of the 
moor is, of course, the common heather or ling. 
It is one of the most social of all plants, covering 
immense tracts with a uniform dusky robe, and 
claiming, like an absolute autocrat, exclusive pos- 
session of the soil. And yet, though capable of 
growing in the bleakest spots, and enduring the 
utmost extremes of temperature, its distribution 
in altitude and latitude is singularly limited. It 
ascends only to a certain height on the mountains 
on which it grows ; for, although it covers the 
summits of most of the hills in England, many of 
the loftiest Highland hills rise high above it, green 
with grass, or grey with moss and lichens. Its 
upper line runs from two to three thousand feet in 
the counties of Perth, Aberdeen, and Inverness, 
varying according as it grows on an elevated moun- 
tain range or on isolated peaks. On the west coast 
of Scotland it is very often found on a level with 
the sea-shore, almost mingling with the dulse and 
the bladder- wrack. In Norway, strange to say, 
although the general surface of the country is 



90 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

composed of high and barren plateaux, it is so 
scarce and local that one may travel hundreds of 
miles without finding a single specimen. It is 
replaced in such localities by the bearberry and 
crowberry, which form immense continuous patches, 
and look at a distance, especially when withered, 
in spring or autumn, somewhat like heather. 
Although abundant on the European side of the 
Ural mountains, it disappears very suddenly and 
decidedly on the eastern declivity of the range ; 
and it is entirely absent from the whole of Northern 
Asia to the shores of the Pacific. Its northern 
limits seem to be in Iceland, and its southern in the 
Azores. In Europe it covers large tracts of ground 
in France, Germany, and Denmark, particularly in 
the landes of Bordeaux and the moors of Bretagne, 
Anjou, and Maine ; while in Great Britain it exists 
in every county, with the exception of Berks, 
Bucks, Northampton, Radnor, Montgomery, Flint, 
Lincoln, Ayr, Haddington, Linlithgow. The range 
of the heath tribe is eminently Atlantic, or 
Western. It is found along a line drawn from 
the north of Norway along the west coast of 
Europe and Africa, down to the Cape of Good 
Hope, in the vicinity of which the family culmi- 
minates in point of luxuriance of growth, beauty of 
flowers and foliage, and variety of species, some 
even attaining the arborescent form. Along this 
line, which is comparatively narrow, seldom run- 
ning far from the coast, about four hundred distinct 
kinds, excluding varieties, are scattered, of which 



II.] ERICAS, 91 

England and Scotland possess only four, and 
Ireland no less than six. 

On the barren moors of Cornwall a very interest- 
ing kind of heather, called the Cornish heath 
{Erica vagans), grows abundantly, distinguished by 
its crowded bell-shaped flowers. On the north 
coast of the same county another species occurs, 
called Erica ciliaris, with very large and gaily- 
coloured flowers, and leaves elegantly fringed with 
hairs. It is frequent near Truro and Penrhyn, and 
in one or two places in Dorset. These two Cornish 
heaths are also found in Ireland ; the one on a 
little island off the coast of Waterford, and the 
other near Clifton in Galway. In the Emerald 
Isle, Mackay's heather, which has large glabrous 
foliage, with an unusual proportion of white under- 
surface, grows in one or two spots in Connemara. 
It was discovered the same year on the Sierra del 
Peral, in Spain. In mountain-bogs in the west of 
Mayo and Galway the Mediterranean heather is 
sparingly distributed, sometimes attaining a height 
of five feet, with numerous upright rigid branches, 
and flowers in leafy racemes. The Scottish Men- 
ziesia (M. caerulea), the most abundant kind of heath 
in Norway, is, as I have already said, almost extinct 
on Dalnaspidal moor in Perthshire, its only locality 
in this country. Every visitor in Ireland must be 
familiar with St. Dabeoc's heath (Menziesia polli- 
folia) y which the guides and peasants frequently sell 
to tourists at exorbitant rates, as a memorial plant. 
This lovely heather occurs in great profusion on 



92 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

the low granitic hills to the westward of Galway, all 
the way from the lower end of Lough Corrib. It 
grows on the heathy moors by the roadsides, and 
though it is found a considerable way up the 
mountains, it is there much less abundant, smaller 
in size, and rarely flowers. The common Bell 
heather of our Highland moorlands (Erica cinerea) 
produces the finest effect of all our native heaths, 
growing as it does in great masses in bare places, 
especially where the burning of the common ling 
has enriched the soil with its ashes, and removed a 
formidable competitor in the struggle of existence. 
It frequently purples a whole hill-side ; and nothing 
finer, as regards effect of colour, can be seen even 
in the tropics. Mr. Wallace, in his recent work on 
" The Malay Archipelago/' says : " The result of 
my examinations has convinced me that the bright 
colours of flowers have a much greater influence 
on the general aspect of nature in temperate than 
in tropical climates. During twelve years spent 
amid the grandest tropical vegetation, I have seen 
nothing comparable to the effect produced on our 
landscapes by gorse, broom, heather, wild hyacinths, 
hawthorn, purple orchises, and buttercups." The 
cross-leaved heath {Erica tetralix) is much less 
abundant, growing in boggy places among the 
yellow spikes of the asphodel and the snowy plumes 
of the cotton-grass. It is more like a hot-house 
heath, with its rich clustered head of pale rosy 
blossoms. But growing sparingly, and its colour 
being more delicate, its effect in the mass, and at a 



II.] AMERICAN PLANTS. 93 

distance, is not equal to its individual beauty close 
at hand. These two heaths are badges of High- 
land clans. 

That Australia and America have no true heaths 
is a botanical aphorism. In Australia the tribe is 
replaced by the Epacridce, which are often as 
beautiful as any of the Cape heaths. In North 
America the Scottish Menziesia is more abundant 
than it is in Scotland, or even in Norway. That 
continent possesses many plants that are closely 
allied to the heath tribe. Hudsonia ericoides, which 
covers the white sandy wastes in many parts of 
New Jersey, is so like the common heath that it is 
not unfrequently mistaken for it when out of flower. 
And in the immense forests which clothe every 
hill and dale of the Laurel, Greenboy, and Alleghany 
range, rhododendrons, kalmias, azaleas, andro- 
medas, and other plants of the heath alliance, form 
the chief underwood, and are remarkable for their 
size and age. It is recorded of the first Highland 
emigrants to Canada, that they wept because the 
heather, a few plants of which they had brought 
with them from their native moors, would not grow 
in their newly-adopted soil. It is understood, how- 
ever, that an English surveyor, nearly thirty years 
ago, found the common ling in the interior of New r - 
foundland ; while in one spot in Massachusetts it 
occurs very sparingly over about half an acre of 
boggy ground, in the strange company of andro- 
medas, kalmias, and azaleas peculiar to the country. 
It was first observed ten years ago, by a Scottish 



94 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

farmer residing in the vicinity, who was no less sur- 
prised by its unexpected appearance than delighted 
to set his foot once more on his native heath. 
None of the plants seemed to be older than six 
years, and may, therefore, have been introduced by 
some one who found relief from home sickness in 
forming this simple floral link between the new and 
the old country. 

There are many beautiful little shrubs growing 
on the moorland along with the heather which are 
found nowhere else. The crowberry spreads over 
rocky places in large tufted masses, producing early 
in summer a liberal supply of black juicy berries, 
which form the principal food of the grouse and 
other moorland birds. The dry barren knolls, 
where the wind blows keenest and the scent of 
water is never felt, are profusely covered with the 
trailing stems and glossy leaves of the bearberry. 
The flower is even more beautiful than that of 
either the cross or fine-leaved heather — a little 
waxen bell, with the faintest blush on its snowy 
cheeks ; and the fruit is no less lovely, clusters of 
mealy beads of the richest crimson gleaming out 
in beautiful contrast from the dark green leaves. 
A species called the black bearberry is found on 
dry barren grounds on many of the Highland moun- 
tains. The flowers are of a pale rose colour, and 
the berries of a rich lustrous black. On Ben Nevis, 
near the lake, on Hoy Hill, Orkney, and especially 
on the mountains of Sutherland and Caithness, this 
rare species occurs, and forms an attractive feature 



it.] ARBUTUS AND ANDROMEDA, 95 

in the Alpine landscape towards the end of autumn, 
when its leaves assume a brilliant flame colour. 
The famous strawberry-tree, or Arbutus, so con- 
spicuous in the beautiful scenery of Killarney, 
and supposed by some to have been introduced 
from Spain by the monks of Mucross Abbey, 
is an arborescent form, an aristocratic relative of 
this lowly Highland family. On the moist hill- 
sides the mountain rasp or cloudberry, the badge 
of the clan Macfarlane, grows in great abundance ; 
and its rich orange fruit, under the name of eiracan 
or noops> furnishes a grateful refreshment to the 
shepherd on a hot autumn day. One of the 
most beautiful plants of the moorland is the 
Marsh Andromeda. It is found but sparingly in 
a few places in the North of England and in the 
Lowlands of Scotland, and in Queen's County and 
Kerry, Ireland ; but where it is found, it is a prize 
worth going for to get. It is a small evergreen 
shrub, with oval ruby-coloured flowers concealed 
among the terminal leaves. In Norway it is very 
abundant on the moors in company with the Men- 
ziesia. I gathered it in great profusion by the 
roadsides when passing through Romsdal, between 
Nystven and Ormen ; its rose-coloured flowers 
fringing the ditches and peeping out from among 
the boulders. The beauty of its flowers when 
contrasted with the dreariness of its habitats, sup- 
posed to be haunted by supernatural beings, led to 
its receiving the classical name of the beautiful 
virgin who was chained to the rock and exposed to 



9 6 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

the attack of the sea-monster. Another beautiful 
plant common on the Highland moorlands is the 
Pyrola or winter-green, which loves to grow in 
upland pine-woods, or under the lee of some dense 
heather bush, perfuming the air w T hen it occurs 
in any quantity with its delicate scent, strongly 
suggestive of the lily of the valley. In similar 
situations the bilberry also luxuriates. Abundant 
everywhere on the exposed sides of the hills, it 
flowers and fruits only in the shelter of the woods 
or on the shady banks of subalpine streams. Its 
berries are exceedingly agreeable to the taste, and 
are largely used in the form of preserves in the 
Highlands. Blaeberry hunting in July is a favourite 
pastime among the children ; and for days after- 
wards the persistent stains of the spoil crimson 
cheeks, lips, and dress. The bog whortleberry 
is more sparingly distributed, though it is frequent 
enough on most of the Highland mountains, ascend- 
ing almost to their summits. The corolla is of 
a pale rosy colour, and the berry black and juicy, 
but inferior in flavour to the bilberry. The cow- 
berry ( Vaccinium Vitis Idcea) ornaments some parts 
of the Highland mountains, woods, and heaths 
with its straggling shrubby growth and box-like 
leaves. It seldom flowers or fruits in this country ; 
but in Norway it bursts into blossom everywhere, 
and is loaded with pale flesh-coloured flowers, 
lighting up the dark pine-woods with its beauty. 
Next to the bilberry, the cranberry is the most 
interesting and useful of the Vacciniums. It loves 



il] JUNIPER AND SWEET GALE. 97 

moist situations, and therefore occurs in peat-bogs, 
with its root immersed in the great spongy cushions 
of the bog-moss, and its evergreen wiry leaves 
trailing over them. The flowers are of a lovely 
rose colour, with a deeply divided corolla and 
segments bent back in a very singular manner. 
In this country it is very local and scarce ; but 
in Norway it grows in great profusion on almost 
every hill ; and nothing can equal the luxurious- 
ness of its growth and fruiting in the marshes and 
steppes in the north of Russia, from which the vast 
quantities used by our confectioners for tarts 
are annually imported. The juniper forms minia- 
ture pine-groves in sheltered places, and yields 
its berries liberally to give a piquant gin flavour 
to the old wife's surreptitious bottle of whisky ; 
while the sweet gale or Dutch myrtle perfumes 
with its strong resinous fragrance the foot that 
brushes through its beds in the marshes, and 
gives a similar spice of the hills to the Sunday 
clothes of the Highland belle, as they are carefully 
folded with a sprig between each in the " muckle 
kist." Beneath the shelter of these tiny fruit-trees 
of the heath there is a dense underwood of minute 
existences, curious antique forms of vegetable life, 
performing silently, and all unknown and un- 
noticed, their allotted tasks in the great household 
of Nature. The little cup-lichen reddens by thou- 
sands every dry hillock ; the reindeer-moss whitens 
the marshes with its coral-like tufts ; the long 
wreaths of the club-moss creep in and out among 

H 



9 8 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

the heather roots, like lithe green serpents, sewed 
to the ground by delicate threads, yet sending up 
here and there from their hiding-places white 
two-pronged spikes to catch the sunbeams ; the 
sphagnum-moss lines the bogs with its great pads 
of brilliant crimson or green ; and the white 
fork-moss covers the wet tussocks with its pale 
cushions, into which the foot sinks up to the ankle ; 
and thus you wander on, observing and gathering 
each new and strange production, until you are 
lost in admiration of the wealth of beauty and 
interest scattered in the waste without any human 
eye to behold it. 

Nor is the moorland altogether destitute of 
human interest. Far up in some lonely corrie 
may be seen the ruins of rude sheilings surrounded 
by soft patches of verdure, on which the heather 
has not intruded for centuries. To these High- 
land chalets the wives and daughters of the crofters 
used to come up from the valley every summer 
with their cattle and dairy utensils, and spend 
three or four months in making cheese and butter 
for the market, or for home consumption during 
the winter, as is the custom still in some secluded 
districts of Norway and the Swiss Alps. The 
Gaelic songs are full of beautiful allusions to the 
incidents of this primitive pastoral life ; and many 
fresh and interesting materials for poetry or fiction 
might be gleaned from this source by those who 
have exhausted every other field. Farther down 
the hill, though still among the moorlands, there 



11.] HIGHLAND RUINS. 99 

are other ruins of cottages and farmsteads, the 
effects of those extensive " clearings " which took 
place forty or fifty years ago in the great Highland 
properties. Scores of such " landmen," as they are 
called, with the rank nettle growing round the 
hearthstone, and surrounded by traces of cultiva- 
tion, may be seen in places where sheep and deer 
now feed undisturbed by the presence of man. 
The wisdom and justice of depopulating these 
upland valleys have been often questioned. It was, 
at the least, a terrible remedy for a terrible disease ; 
and we ought, perhaps, as a nation, to be thankful 
that upon the whole it has been productive of un- 
lookedrfor beneficial results. The situation of these 
ruins is often exceedingly picturesque ; perched 
under the lee of a grey crag, with a little streamlet 
murmuring past through the greensward, like the 
voice of memory informing the solitude, and a 
single fir-tree bending its gnarled branches over 
the roofless walls, its scaly trunk gleaming red 
against the sunset, enhancing, instead of relieving, 
the desolation of the scene. I have spent many 
happy days in these simple homes, the abodes of 
honest worth and rough but genuine hospitality, 
on which I look back through the haze of years 
with a pleasing regret. Well do I remember your 
humble hut, Donald Macrae, afar amid the wild 
moors of Bohespick, with its thatched roof and un- 
mortared walls, green and golden with Nature's 
lavish adorning of moss and lichen. Your little 
patch of garden was overgrown with weeds which 

H 2 



100 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

congregated there from all quarters, as if glad of a 
shelter from the inhospitable wild, and so rudely- 
fenced in from the heather that the rabbits found 
easy admission to your peas, and the red deer 
often came down hunger-driven from the snow-clad 
heights, and devoured in a few seconds your scanty 
stock of winter kail; but in no garden of lord or 
commoner were the red hairy gooseberries so 
sweet, and Mount Hybla itself could not boast of 
more luscious honey than the liquid amber gathered 
from the heather-bells by the three beehives in the 
sunny corner. I can testify to the noisy welcome 
of your collies when I used to appear in sight, and 
to the shyness of your four chubby pledges of 
affection, as they cautiously peered out at me 
from behind the safe shelter of the maternal wing, 
mute and irresponsive to the kindest familiarities, 
and to the most tempting offers of "sweeties." 
The vision of your hospitable board rises up 
before my mental eye, loaded with a pile of crisp 
oat-cakes ; a jug of foaming cream, with that rich 
nutty flavour peculiar to the produce of cows fed 
on old pastures uncontaminated by villanous arti- 
ficial manures ; cameos of golden butter, with the 
national symbol in beautiful relief; a great hard 
cheese of ewe's-milk; and last, not least, a bottle 
of native mountain-dew undesecrated by water or 
gauger's grace. I see dimly, through the peat-reek 
of your ingle, your own manly face and buirdly 
figure clad in tartan coat and kilt spun by your 
aged mother from the fleece of your own sheep, 



ii.] A SHEPHERD'S SHEILING. 101 

with a collie at your feet, and your youngest 
hope dandling on your knee, and your comely 
wife, with mealy cheeks and arms bare to the 
shoulders, baking the household cakes, as perfect 
a picture of a Dutch Venus as ever emanated from 
the pencil of Rubens or Houdekoetter ! May the 
blessing of Him that dwelt in the bush rest upon 
you and yours in that distant Australian valley, 
which, true to the instinct of home, you have 
pathetically named after your native spot ! 

It is well that there are still many homes of this 
kind, inhabited by an equally hospitable race, to be 
found by the stranger when weary and belated in 
his wanderings amid the Highland moorlands. I 
know nothing more enjoyable than a week's sojourn 
in one of these places. The infatuation which 
drives so many people every season to dissipate 
their time amid the frivolities of some pert fashion- 
able village or watering-place, on pretence of going 
to the country, is utterly incomprehensible to me. 
I would advise every sensible person who wishes 
a fresh supply of good temper as well as of good 
health, to avoid carefully, as he would the plague, 
every one of those spas and villages " within easy 
reach by coach or railway," and boldly take up 
his abode in some lonely farmhouse or shepherd's 
sheiling on the Highland moors. Here, with an 
utter change of scene, you breathe an air pure 
and fresh from Nature's own goblet. Ozone, that 
purifying principle in the atmosphere which is 
antagonistic to all fevers and miasma, increases 



102 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

with the height ; and here it abounds, filling all the 
atmosphere with its healthful influences. There 
is a tonic in every draught of it for every species 
of dyspepsia, for every form of enervation and 
lassitude that results from a pampered stomach 
or an overwrought brain. There is balm in every 
breeze, expanding the spirit and lifting it buoyantly 
up from under the burden of care and anxiety, 
until it embraces like a rainbow all nature within 
its radiant arch, and old cares and sorrows become 
dim as dreams. You feel as if, besides all the gases 
needful for respiration, there were present " some 
ethereal nectarine element baffling the analysis 
of the chemisj:," yet revealing its presence in the 
thrill of conscious exuberant life which it excites 
in your frame. Here, not far from the centres of 
civilization, within reach, and yet remote, you may 
realize the benighted state of our ancestors ; feel 
what it is to exist without letters, newspapers, 
visitors, calls of ceremony, or any of the thousand 
and one appliances of modern life, and yet at any 
time be able to survey from some elevated point a 
region within whose magic ring all these things are 
enjoyed. Here is the highest soul of monastic 
retirement — all its romance, with none of its re- 
straint. You stand apart from the world in an eddy 
of life, a quiet sheltered bay cut off from the ocean, 
whose rough stormy waves rave and foam without, 
with no society save that of the taciturn farmer 
and his family, the black-faced sheep and the dumb 
mountains. You will have to put up with some 



il] ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES. 103 

inconveniences, no doubt. You may feel, when 
forcing your body into the wall-press which stands 
for your bed in the &?/z-room, as if you were re- 
hearsing, like Charles V. — with the disadvantage of 
being alive, and no mourners — the ceremony of 
your own coffining. The friction of the native 
sheets and blankets against your delicate skin may 
remind you forcibly of the shampooing which 
nearly flayed you in a Turkish bath. You will, 
perhaps, have to wash yourself in the neighbour- 
ing burn, in absence of all toilette apparatus. 
Your diet will be largely a milk one, reducing 
you to the condition of a Cretan ; and your 
teeth, lately under the care of Messrs. Molar 
and Co., may have hard work with the granitic 
cakes and fibrous mutton. But all these disad- 
vantages will enhance, by way of contrast, your 
enjoyment of the place. They will be incidents to 
think of pleasantly afterwards amid the luxuries 
of your club, or during that pleasant half-hour 
of retrospection before you fall asleep amid the 
downy billows of civilization's four-poster. And, 
depend upon it, there will be a great deal of in- 
sensible education going on in your converse with 
your own soul in the solitude of the hills, and a 
stock of softening influences accumulating, which 
will make the toilsome dreary days of winter 
brighter, and prepare you the better for that 
" bourne from whence no traveller returns." 

One of the most frequent incidents of the moor- 
land, about the beginning of June, is peat-making, 



104 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

the most picturesque of Highland outdoor occu- 
pations. In those basin-shaped hollows which give 
the scenery an undulating aspect there are large 
deposits of peat, formed by the decay of numberless 
generations of those plants which delight in cool 
climates and moist soils. The history of this 
accumulation of carbonaceous matter is exceed- 
ingly interesting to the geologist. It furnishes a 
plausible solution of the difficulties involved in 
the question of the formation of coal ; it provides 
data by which recent geological changes may be 
determined with some degree of accuracy; and 
frequently, owing to its antiseptic qualities, it 
becomes an archaeological cabinet, preserving the 
relics of former generations. In none of these 
aspects, however, are the peat-bogs of the High- 
land moors so interesting as in their connexion 
with the habits and customs of the peasantry. It 
is no easy task to thread one's way among the 
bogs and marshes where the peat is found, the 
danger being somewhat imminent of falling plump 
over the yielding edge into some open pool of inky 
water, or sinking up to the waist in some treach- 
erous spot veiled over with a deceitful covering of 
the greenest moss. In the outskirts of this wilder- 
ness of bogs the peat-makers are hard at work. 
One man, with a peculiarly shaped spade, cuts the 
peats from the wall of turf before him and throws 
them up to the edge of the bog, where a woman 
dexterously receives and places them on a wheel- 
barrow, another woman rolling away the load and 



il] PEAT-MAKING, 105 

spreading it out carefully on some elevated hillock, 
exposed to the sunshine, in order to dry and 
harden. And thus the process goes on from sun- 
rise to sunset, with an hour's rest for each meal. 
Though looked forward to, especially by the 
younger labourers, with much pleasure, as a 
delightful contrast to the monotony of their ordi- 
nary work about the farm, and as affording peculiar 
facilities for carrying on the mysteries of rustic 
courtship, peat-making is most fatiguing work ; 
and when, as is often the case, they have to walk 
a distance of five or six miles to and from the 
spot, and to carry on their labours under the 
scorching glare of the sun, exposed without shelter 
to torrents of rain or piercing winds, it must be 
confessed that they pay dearly for the materials 
which in the long cheerless winter of the North 
afford them both fire and light. In remote inac- 
cessible districts, where wood is scarce and coal 
almost unknown on account of its enormous price, 
averaging from 30^. to 4/. a ton, peat is the sole 
fuel used by the inhabitants. The whole of a 
peat-bog, covering in many places an area of 
several acres, and occupying what was once evi- 
dently the bed of a lake, is parcelled out into 
several portions, which are generally annexed by 
the proprieter to the holdings of the tenants on 
his estate who are nearest to the spot. These 
parcels of peat-bog are usually given free of rent ; 
and the whole expense connected with peats is 
thus only the labour involved in their manufacture 



106 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

and carriage. So rough are the roads, however, % 
and so long the distances to which they have in 
most cases to be carried, that peat is not so cheap 
and economical a fuel as might be supposed. The 
selling price is usually three shillings a cart, and 
six carts are understood to last as long as a ton of 
coal. Peat-making is not nearly so common in 
the Highlands as it used to be. The facilities of 
carriage to almost every part of the country by 
sea and land are now numerous, and coal in con- 
sequence is so reduced in price, as to be more 
within reach of the poorer classes ; while the use 
of that fuel saves time and labour which can be 
more profitably employed. 

Another spectacle peculiar to the moors is the 
burning of the heather. This practice is not con- 
fined to any particular locality, but is followed 
all over the Highlands. It commences in spring, 
when the snows have completely disappeared, and 
the weather is dry and fine, and is carried on at 
irregular intervals throughout the whole summer. 
Its object is, by clearing the ground of the heather, 
under whose shade no other vegetation can grow, 
to produce pasturage for the sheep. In spots that 
have been thus cleared the grass grows luxuriantly, 
and forms a thick close carpet of green verdure, of 
which the mountain sheep are particularly fond. 
The stumps of the heather are usually left in the 
ground, for the fire consumes only the foliage and 
the smaller twigs ; and these skeletons, closely 
matted together, bleached and sharpened by the 



II.] B URNING THE HE A THER. 107 

elements, frequently crossing one's path, are very 
disagreeable to walk on, unless the feet are 
protected by very thick boots. The contrasts of 
shape and colour formed by these clearings in the 
aboriginal heather are very curious, and strikingly 
diversify the monotony of the landscape — here a 
uniform brown sea of heather ; there long stripes 
of grey colouring running in and out and crossing 
in all directions, like promontories and capes ; and 
yonder bright green isles of verdure smiling amid 
the surrounding desolation. The shepherds, unless 
under the immediate surveillance of a gamekeeper, 
are often reckless in setting fire to a hill-side, not 
caring how far the flames may extend, allowing 
them to burn for days and even weeks, until a 
friendly deluge of rain extinguishes them. Valu- 
able tracts of grouse moor are thus often ruined 
beyond repair, and the destructive effects not 
unfrequently extend to upland woods and corn- 
fields, presenting, on almost an equal scale, a picture 
of the famous prairie fires of America. Hares and 
deer are seen careering before the flames ; grouse 
are whirring past blinded and scorched, and lizards 
and snakes are running hither and thither in an 
agony of terror ; volumes of dense smoke darken 
the air, and the dull red embers light up the dark- 
ness of the night and reflect a volcanic glare upon 
the surrounding hills. It is one of the grandest 
sights of the kind to be seen in the Highlands. 

These rough, hasty sketches among the heather 
would be manifestly incomplete without a notice, 



108 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

however brief, of grouse-shooting. Being no sports- 
man, I despair of giving an adequate conception 
of the sport to the uninitiated. It is only those 
who have taken part in it who can understand the 
importance which it has attained in the world of 
fashion, and the enthusiasm with which the most 
phlegmatic English millionaires and members of 
Parliament enter into it. We have all, from the 
highest to the lowest, a strong spice of the savage 
in our nature ; and a longing at times comes over 
us to break loose from the restraints of civilization 
and revel in the wild freedom of our barbarian 
ancestors. The grouse-shooting fever may be one 
of the periodical ebullitions of the original tem- 
perament. But, after all, there is really very much 
to enjoy connected with the sport. The very 
change from the Babel of noises in the metropolis 
to the deep hush of Nature's great solitudes has a 
soothing charm ; while the return to simple hardy 
life is a gratification which is felt all the more 
keenly, the more that ordinary life is artificial and 
refined. Then the associations of the sport — the 
fresh exhilarating air of the hills, laden with the 
all-pervading perfume of the heather bells ; the 
magnificent prospect of hill and valley stretching 
around ; the blue serenity of the autumnal sky ; 
the carpet of flowering heather glowing for miles on 
every side, and so elastic to the tread ; the vast- 
ness and profundity of the solitude ; as well as the 
strange and unfamiliar sights and sounds of the 
scene — all these appeal to that poetical spiritual 



II.] GROUSE-SHOOTING. 109 

faculty which is latent even in the most prosaic 
statistician of St. Stephen's. Add to these the 
exciting nature of the sport itself — the feelings of 
emulation it excites among rival sportsmen ; the 
vigilance and wildness of the birds, requiring the 
utmost caution and skill in approaching them ; 
the thrill of expectation as the well-trained dogs 
suddenly stop and point with uplifted paw and 
anxious look to the spot where a covey is nestled ; 
the sudden startling whirr of the birds ascending 
at your approach ; the satisfaction of bringing 
down, with well-aimed double fire, the plumpest 
of them ; the rustic luncheon beside the spring ; 
and the return, amid the splendour of the setting 
sun, with well-filled bag, to be greeted half-way 
from the snug shooting-lodge, with the warm 
praises of rosy lips and the fond looks of loving 
eyes. Nay, even the disappointments to be met 
with — the long wearisome walks over bog and 
heather, searching in vain for game; the false 
pointing of dogs, deceived by the scent left behind 
in places where game were a while before, but are 
not now ; and the most vexatious thing of all, the 
defying insolence in the kok-kok-kok of the 
male bird as he flies off unhurt from your fire at 
the head of his family — all these are so many 
elements of the romantic, which throw a halo of 
the deepest interest around the sport, and make 
the twelfth of August to be more eagerly anti- 
cipated by the weary Londoner than any other 
day in the calendar. Grojase-shooting has been of 
incalculable benefit to the Highlands. Thousands 



110 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

of pounds are thus annually spent in the poorest 
districts ; communication is opened up with the 
most isolated spots ; employment is furnished to 
carriers and gillies, who might otherwise have either 
to starve or emigrate ; and proprietors receive some- 
thing like a second rent from parts of their estates 
which were formerly valueless. The preservation 
of the game is thus of the utmost importance, not 
unworthy of being considered a national question. 
Even apart from such selfish considerations, it 
would be a great pity if this interesting bird 
should become extinct in the only quarter of the 
globe where it is found. As it is, every one will 
be sorry to learn that it is becoming scarcer and 
wilder every year, disappearing rapidly from loca- 
lities where it used to be abundant, and now 
principally confined to the Perthshire and Inver- 
ness-shire moors. The only ground of complaint 
any one can have against the sport is, that it has 
a tendency to foster that spirit of exclusiveness 
which characterises many of the great landed pro- 
prietors, and induces them to shut up some of the 
wildest scenery in Scotland from the foot of tourist 
and savant. The depopulation of many Highland 
districts through this game mania might be over- 
looked, owing to the many ulterior advantages that 
have resulted therefrom, both to those who remain 
and those who have emigrated. But there is 
neither advantage nor courtesy in such a strict 
and extensive application of the law of trespass. 
The reason commonly alleged for it is a mere 
pretence. Not one of the true lovers of nature — 



II.] TRESPASSING ON THE MOORS. Ill 

and it is only such who would care to penetrate 
out of the beaten tracks into these spots — but 
would be as careful of the rights and possessions 
of the proprietor as though they were his own ; 
and it is difficult to see how the presence at long 
and rare intervals of a solitary pedestrian in such 
immeasurable solitudes can have the effect of 
scaring game. The very worst thing he could do 
would be merely to send them scudding away 
from one heather hillock to another ; and in all 
likelihood the human biped would be the more 
scared of the two by this movement. It requires 
pretty stout nerves, and somewhat unusual pre- 
sence of mind, to hear with unruffled composure 
the sudden and unexpected whirr of a heathcock ; 
while the vision of a herd of wild deer with 
lowered antlers, in autumn, is sufficient to make 
the boldest turn tail. Let proprietors enjoy their 
game rights to the full, but it is unworthy of the 
liberality of the age to debar the " unlanded " 
from the enjoyment of universal nature, which to 
many is as much a necessity as their daily bread> 
and more than counterbalances the want of property. 
Full liberty, without any hampering restraint what- 
ever, to wander among the heather, and gather the 
materials of their study where Nature scatters 
them with so lavish a hand, should be accorded to 
the artist and the man of science, whose pursuits 
do not interfere with the gains or enjoyments of 
others, and to whom we are indebted for some of 
the most refined and elevated pleasures of life. 



CHAPTER III. 

A GARDEN WALL IN A HIGHLAND GLEN. 

ALPHONSE KARR, in his charming little work 
entitled " A Tour round my Garden," shows how 
much pleasure and instruction may be found by 
careful eyes and thoughtful minds within the very 
narrow limits of an ordinary garden, to compensate 
the sedentary for being deprived of the enjoyments 
of travel. I have often thought that, if the garden 
wall, which he has strangely overlooked, were pro- 
perly described, with all the objects and associa- 
tions connected with it, the Frenchman's tour 
would have been made still more interesting. 
Though one of the most familiar and common- 
place objects upon which the eye can rest, it has 
often suggested to myself many a pleasing and 
profitable train of thought in dull moods of mind, 
when least disposed for inquiry or reflection. To 
those who cannot climb the mountain summit, or 
wander over the moorland, a few words describing 
the points of attraction which it possesses may not 
be out of place at a time when the worker becomes 
the observer, and serious pursuits are laid aside for 
a while to enjoy the dolcefar wienie of the country. 



in.] A GARDEN WALL. 113 

Still small voices that were drowned by the bustle 
of life have now a chance of being heard amid the 
universal silence ; and humble sights of nature — 
overlooked amid engrossing scenes of human 
interest — are now appreciated with all the zest of 
a holiday. 

There is a structure before my eye at this 
moment which is my beau ideal of a garden wall. 
It stands on the brink of a little stream that clothes 
every mossy stone in its bed with sparkling folds 
of liquid drapery, and makes its refreshing murmur 
heard all day long in the garden, animating it as if 
with the voice of a friend. The space of grassy 
sward outside between it and the water — green as 
an emerald — is jewelled with constellations of 
primroses, anemones, and globe-flowers, as fair in 
their own order and season as the cultivated flowers 
which make the borders within gay as the robe of 
an Indian prince. Three fairy birch-trees bend 
over it with their white stems glistening like marble 
columns in the sunlight, and their small scented 
leaves whispering some sinless secret to the breeze, 
or, when the wind is hushed, stealing coy glances at 
the wavering reflection of their beauty in the stream. 
It is built of rough stones loosely laid above each 
other without mortar or cement, and coped on the 
top with pieces of verdant turf taken from the 
neighbouring common ; and would perhaps be 
considered very unsightly in the suburbs of a city 
when contrasted with the trim elegant walls sur- 
rounding villa gardens. In this situation, however, 

I 



114 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

it is exceedingly appropriate, and harmonizes with 
the character of the scenery much better than if 
its stones were chiselled with nicest care, and laid 
together with all the skill of the architect. The 
eye of a painter would delight in its picturesque- 
ness, and the accessories by which it is surrounded ; 
for while offering an insuperable obstacle outside 
to little eager hands, covetous of forbidden fruit, 
ripe and especially unripe, it is yet sufficiently low 
inside to permit an unobstructed view of the scenery 
in front, allowing the eye to wander dreamily over 
the landscape as it billows away in light and shade 
— from the green cornfields up to the pine-woods 
that hang like thunder-clouds on the lower heights 
— and thence to the brown heather moorlands, and 
on to the blue hills that melt away in sympathy 
and peace on the distant horizon. The garden 
which it surrounds — a the decorated border-land 
between man's home and Nature's measureless 
domains " — is very pleasant. Bright with simple 
old-fashioned flowers, and nestled amid verdure of 
blossoming tree and evergreen shrub, it looks like 
a little Eden of peace, sacred to meditation and 
love, which the noises of the great world reach 
only in soft and subdued echoes. Alas ! the beau- 
tifully embroidered robe of nature too frequently 
reveals the suggestive outlines of some dead joy, 
though at the same time it mercifully softens over 
and conceals its ghastly details. There is a se- 
pulchre in this garden too ; and, though the wall 
has been high enough to bound the desires and 



in.] HUMAN AS SO CI A TJONS. 115 

fancies of simple contented hearts that never sought 
to mingle in gayer scenes, it has not been suffi- 
ciently high to exclude that dark mist of sorrow in 
which the light of life goes out, and the warmth 
of the heart gets chill. That wall is dear to me on 
account of its strangely sweet memories of mingled 
joy and sadness. Eyes have gazed upon it as a 
part of their daily vision, that are now closed to 
all earthly beauty; voices beside it have sounded 
merrily at the sweetest surprise of the year, when 
the snowdrop first peered above the sod like the 
ghost of the perished flowers — voices that suddenly 
dropped off into silence when our life-song w T as 
loudest and sweetest ; tender and true hearts under 
the caresses of its overshadowing birch-trees have 
known " of earthly bliss the all — the joy of loving 
and being beloved/' Little fingers have often been 
busy among the flower-beds which it sheltered, 
leaving touching traces of their work in buds be- 
headed left lying artlessly beside the parent cluster 
— joys plucked too soon, and fugitive as they were 
pleasing. Fresh marks of little teeth have often 
been found deep sunk in a dozen rosy apples 
growing temptingly within reach on the lowest 
bough — a trace of " original sin," natural to every 
juvenile descendant of Eve, and easy to forgive 
when, as in these instances, linked with so much 
innocence ; it seemed so childlike to take a bite 
out of several ripening apples instead of plucking 
and finishing one. But, apart from such human 
associations, I have studied the wall often for its 

I 2 



116 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

own sake ; and to me it has all the interest of a 
volume. Covered over with its bright frescoes of 
parti-coloured lichens and mosses, and crowned 
with its green turf, sprinkled with grass-blossoms 
and gay autumn flowers, it reminds me of the rich 
binding of an old book on which the artist has 
bestowed especial care ; or rather, it stands in 
relation to the garden like the quaintly illuminated 
initial of a monkish chronicle, telling in its gay 
pictures and elaborate tracery the various incidents 
of the chapter. 

A rough stone wall in any situation is an object 
of interest to a thoughtful mind. The different 
shapes of the stones, their varied mineral character, 
the diversity of tints, flexures, and lines which occur 
in them, are all suggestive of inquiry and reflection. 
Sermons may thus be found in stones more profit- 
able, perhaps, than many printed or spoken ones, 
which he who runs may read. The smallest ap- 
pearances link themselves with the grandest phe- 
nomena ; a minute speck supplies a text around 
which may cluster many a striking thought ; and 
by means of a hint derived from a mere hue or 
line in a little stone — almost inappreciable to the 
general eye — may be reconstructed seas and con- 
tinents that passed away thousands of ages ago — 
visions of landscape scenery to which the present 
aspect of the globe presents no parallel. This 
flexure of the stone tells me of violent volcanic 
eruptions, by which the soft, newly-deposited stra- 
tum — the muddy precipitate of ocean waters — 



in.] GEOLOGICAL HISTOR Y. 117 

heaved and undulated like corn in the breeze ; that 
lamination, of which the dark lines regularly alter- 
nate with the grey, speaks eloquently of gentle 
waves rippling musically over sandy shores ; and 
the irregular protuberances, which I see here and 
there over the stone, are the casts of hollows or 
cracks produced in ancient tide-beaches by shrink- 
age — similar appearances being often seen under 
our feet, as we walk over the pavement of almost 
any of our towns. Yonder smooth and striated 
surface of granite is the Runic writing of the 
northern Frost-king, transporting me back in fancy 
to that wonderful age of ice when glaciers slid over 
mountain rocks, and flowed through lowland val- 
leys, where corn now grows, and the snow seldom 
falls. And if there be a block of sandstone, it may 
chance to exhibit not only ripple-marks of ancient 
seas, but also footprints of unknown birds and 
strange tortoises that sought their food along the 
waters edge ; and sometimes memorials of former 
things more accidental and shadowy than even 
these — such as fossil raindrops, little circular and 
oval hollows, with their casts — supposed to be 
impressions produced by rain and hail, and indi- 
cating by their varying appearances the character 
of the shower, and the direction of the wind that 
prevailed when it was falling. Every one has heard 
of the crazy Greek who went about exhibiting a 
brick as a specimen of the building which he wished 
to sell ; but in the structure of each geological 
system every stone is significant of the whole. 



118 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

Each fragment, however minute, is a record of the 
terrestrial changes that occurred when it was 
formed ; ingrained in every hue and line is the 
story of the physical conditions under which it 
was produced. The Ten Commandments were not 
more clearly engraved on the two tables of stone 
than the laws of nature that operated in its forma- 
tion are impressed upon the smallest pebble by the 
wayside. Its materials furnish an unmistakeable 
clue to its origin, and its shape unfolds its subse- 
quent history. God has impressed the marks of 
the revolutions of the earth not merely upon large 
tracts of country and enormous strata of rock and 
mountain range — difficult of access and inconve- 
nient for study — but even upon the smallest stone, 
so that the annals of creation are multiplied by 
myriads of copies, and can never be lost. Man 
cannot urge the excuse that he has no means of 
knowing the doings of the Lord in the past silent 
ages of the earth, that His path in the deep and 
His footsteps in the great waters are hopelessly 
unknown. Go where he may, look where he 
pleases, he will see the medals of creation — the 
signet marks of the Almighty — stamped indelibly 
and unmistakeably upon the smallest fragments of 
the dumb, dead earth ; so that if he should un- 
gratefully hold his peace, and withhold the due 
tribute of praise to the Creator, " the very stones 
would immediately cry out." Anatomists of scenery, 
who look beneath the surface to the skeleton of the 
earth, tell us that the features of mountains and 



in.] FOSSIL REMAINS. 119 

valleys are dependent upon the geological cha- 
racter of their materials ; and, therefore, those who 
are skilful in the art can tell from the outlines of 
the landscape the nature of the underlying rocks, 
although no part of them crop above ground. A 
passing glance at the wayside walls will reveal the 
prominent geology of any district, just as the shape 
of a single leaf and the arrangement of veins on its 
surface suggest the appearance of the whole tree 
from which it has fallen, or as a fragment of a tooth 
or a bone can call up the picture of the whole 
animal of whom it formed a part. In Aberdeen- 
shire, the walls are built principally of granite, grey 
and red ; in Perthshire, of gneiss and schist ; in 
Mid-Lothian and Lanarkshire, of sandstone ; and 
in the southern Scottish counties generally, of trap 
and porphyry. Sometimes they are composed of 
transported materials, not native to the district ; 
and the history of these opens up a field of de- 
lightful speculation. But there are no walls so 
interesting as those which occur in the mountain 
districts of Derbyshire, and in some parts of Lan- 
cashire. In almost every stone are embedded fossil a**-** 
shells, and those beautiful jointed corals called 4**&& 
encrinites, which look like petrified lilies, and have 
no living representatives in the ocean at the present 
day. Even the most homogeneous blocks are 
found on close inspection to be composed entirely 
of mineralized skeletons, and to form the graves of 
whole hecatombs of shells and corallines long ago 
extinct. Strange to think that our limestone rocks 



120 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

are formed of the calcareous matter secreted by- 
living creatures from the waters of the sea, and 
their own shelly coverings when dead, just as our 
coal-beds are the carbonized remains of former 
green, luxuriant forests. Thus, while walking along 
the highway in almost any locality, the most hasty 
examination of the wall on either side furnishes 
the student of nature with abundant subjects for 
reflection ; and those lofty dykes, built by the 
farmer to keep in his cattle, or by the jealous 
proprietor to secure the privacy of his domain, 
while they forbid all views of the surrounding 
country, amply compensate for the restriction they 
impose by the truths engraven on their seemingly 
blank but really eloquent pages — like the tree 
which in winter permits us to see the glory of the 
sunset and the purple mountains of the west through 
its lattice-work of boughs, but in summer confines 
our vision by the satisfying beauty of its full foliage 
and blossoms. 

The mist of familiarity obscures, if not altogether 
hides, the intrinsic wonder that there is about many 
of our commonest things. The existence of stones 
is an accepted fact, suggestive of no thought or 
feeling — unless, indeed, we stumble against one ; 
we look upon them as things of course, as natural 
in their way as the rocks, streams, and woods 
around — as a necessary and inevitable part of the 
order of creation ; and yet they are in reality well 
calculated to excite curiosity. Sterling, in his 
'■ Thoughts and Images," beautifully says : a Life of 



in.] FORMA TION OF S TO NFS. 121 

any kind is a confounding mystery; nay, that 
which we commonly do not call life — the prin- 
ciple of existence in a stone or a drop of water — 
is an inscrutable wonder. That in the infinity of 
time and space anything should be, should have 
a distinct existence, should be more than nothing ! 
The thought of an immense abysmal nothing is 
awful, only less so than that of All and God ; and 
thus a grain of sand, being a fact, a reality, rises 
before us into something prodigious and immeasur- 
able — a fact that opposes and counterbalances the 
immensity of non-existence. ,, But this wonder and 
mystery stones share in common with all material 
things ; their own origin is a special source of 
interest. Many individuals, if they think at all 
about the subject, dismiss it with the easy reflection 
that stones were created at first precisely in the 
form in which they are now found. It may, how- 
ever, be laid down as a geological axiom, that no 
stones were originally created. The irregular aggre- 
gations of hardened matter so called formed part at 
first of regular strata and beds of rock, and were 
broken loose from these by volcanic eruptions, by 
the effects of storms or floods, by frost and ice, or 
by the slow corroding tooth of time. By these 
natural agencies the hard superficial crust of the 
earth has been broken up into fragments of various 
sizes, carried away by streams, glaciers, and land- 
slips — modified in their shapes by friction against 
one another, and at last, after many changes and 
revolutions, deposited in the places where they are 



122 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

found. We owe the largest proportion of the stones 
scattered over the surface of the earth to glacial 
action — one of the most recent and remarkable 
revolutions in the annals of geology. Man is thus 
provided with materials for building purposes con- 
veniently to his hand, without the necessity of 
blasting the rock, or digging into the earth ; and it 
is a striking thought, that the very same great laws 
by which the disposition of land and sea has been 
effected, and the great features of the earth modi- 
fied, have conduced in their ultimate results to the 
homeliest human uses. The materials which the 
poorest cotter builds into the rudest crowfoot dyke 
around his kail-yard or potato-field, have been pro- 
duced by causes that affected whole continents and 
oceans. The meanest and mightiest things are 
thus intimately associated and correlated ; just as 
the forces that control the movements of the stars 
are locked up in the smallest pebble — keeping its 
particles together, a miniature world. Stones are 
sometimes out of place, as when they occur in a 
field or garden ; but they form a feature in the 
aesthetic aspect of scenery which could not well be 
wanted. What a picturesque appearance do the 
huge rough boulders strewn over its surface impart 
to the green hill-side ! especially if, as is often the 
case, their sides are painted and cushioned with 
that strange cryptogamic vegetation which one 
sees nowhere else, and a daring rowan-tree plants 
itself in their crevices and waves its green and 
crimson flag of victory over soil and circumstances. 



in.] ^ESTHETIC RELA TIONS. 1 23 

There are few things more beautiful than the pebbly 
beach of a mountain lake ; and some of the finest 
subjects for a picture may be found by the painter 
along the rough, rocky course of a mountain stream, 
where the stones form numerous snowy waterfalls, 
and the spray nourishes hosts of luxuriant mosses 
and wild flow T ers. Although dumb, and destitute 
of sonorous properties, how large a share of the 
sweet minstrelsy of nature is contributed by them. 
They are the strings in the harp of the stream, 
from which the snowy fingers of the water-nymph 
draw out ever-varying melody — a ceaseless melody, 
heard when all other sounds are still. By their 
opposition to the current they create life and music 
amid stillness and monotony, change the river from 
a dull flat canal into a thing of wild grandeur and 
animation, and redeem the barren waste from utter 
silence and death. Commonest of all common 
things, it is strange to think that there are parts of 
this rocky material earth of ours where stones are 
as rare as diamonds, and the smallest pebble is a 
geological curiosity. The natives of some of the 
coral islands of the Pacific procure stones for their 
tools — this being the only purpose for which they 
use them — solely from the roots of trees that have 
been carried away, with their load of earth and 
stones adhering to them, by the waves from the 
nearest mainland, and grounded upon their shores. 
So highly, are these stray waifs of the ocean valued 
that a tax is laid upon them, which adds consider- 
ably to the revenue of the chiefs. This reminds us 



124 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

of the preciousness of stones during what is called 
the stone age of our own country — whose date is so 
apocryphal — when flint and granite were the sole 
materials employed for making the various imple- 
ments of war and of household use, and these rude 
implements were buried with the dead in the stone 
cist under the huge cromlech or grey cairn. Those 
relics dug up in the times of our forefathers, before 
the attention of antiquaries or geologists was 
directed to the subject, were accounted as holy 
stones, supposed to have formed part of the caba- 
listic appendages of the necromancer of bygone 
ages ; and were in some instances enveloped in 
leather or encased in gold, and worn as amulets 
round the neck. 

Many of the stones of the garden wall before me 
are covered over with a thin coating of vegetation 
of various hues and forms. The tints from Nature's 
palette have been applied with wonderful skill ; the 
warmer and more vivid hues gradually blending 
with the grey and neutral ones. By this means, 
the harsh, artificial aspect of the wall has dis- 
appeared, and an air of natural beauty has been 
imparted to it, exquisitely harmonizing with the 
white trunks of the birch-trees, the green flower- 
sprinkled bank of the streamlet, and the blue 
cloud-flecked softness of the over-arching sky. In- 
stead of disfiguring, it now adorns the landscape, 
and the eye rests upon its mottled, softly-rounded 
sides and top with unwearied pleasure. It affords 
an illustration of the common truth, that there are 



in.] HARMONY OF COLOURS. 125 

no distinct lines of demarcation, no harsh, abrupt 
objects allowed in nature. Even man's work must 
come under this law; and wherever Nature has 
the power, she brings back the human structure to 
her own bosom, and, while dismantling and disin- 
tegrating it, clothes it with a living garniture of 
beauty, such as no art of man can imitate. The 
farmer may keep the meadow or cornfield distinct 
from the surrounding scene, heavy with uniform 
greenness, or ugly with the discordant glare of 
yellow weeds ; but as soon as Nature obtains the 
control of it, when out of cultivation, she brings it 
into harmony with the landscape by carefully 
spreading her wild flowers over it in such a way 
as to restore the proper balance of colour. As the 
earth is rounded into one great whole, so all its 
objects are connected with: each other, not merely 
by laws of structure and dependence, but also by 
close aesthetic relations. The rock, decked with 
moss, lichen, and fern, shades in sympathy of hue 
and outline with the verdure of wood and meadow 
around it ; the mountain and the ocean melt on 
their farthest limits into the blue of the sky ; the 
river and the lake do not preserve the distinctness 
of a separate element, but blend with the solid land, 
by mirroring its scenery on their tranquil bosom ; 
and the very atmosphere itself, by its purple clouds 
on the horizon, raising the eye gradually and insen- 
sibly from the dull, tangible earth to the transparent 
heavens, becomes a part of the landscape instead 
of the mere empty space that surrounds it. 



1 26 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

While this picturesque effect of the wall is 
admired, the objects which produce it are very 
generally overlooked. If carefully examined, how- 
ever, they will be found very interesting, both on 
account of their peculiarities of structure and the 
associations connected with them. Almost every 
stone is made venerable, as also the adjoining fruit- 
trees and espaliers, with the grey rosettes of that 
commonest of all lichens, the stone parmelia. This 
plant used to be extensively employed by the 
Highlanders in dyeing woollen stuffs of a dirty 
purple, or rather reddish-brown, colour. By the 
Arabian physicians it was administered under the 
name of achnen, for purifying the blood ; and it 
was also an ingredient in the celebrated unguentum 
armarium, or sympathetic ointment, which was 
supposed to cure wounds if the weapon that 
inflicted them were smeared with it, without any 
application to the wounds themselves. Besides 
this lichen, the ointment consisted of human fat, 
human blood, linseed oil, turpentine, and Armenian 
bole, mixed together in various proportions. A 
present of the prescription for this precious mess 
was made by Paracelsus, about the year 1530, to 
the Emperor Maximilian, by whom it was greatly 
valued. Much was written, in the medical treatises 
of the time, both for and against the efficacy of such 
applications ; and, in an age when prescriptions 
as a rule were founded upon some real or fancied 
resemblance between the remedy and the disease, 
the stone parmelia was an object of great import- 



in.] YELLOW WALL PARMELIA. 127 

ance. It is now sold by the London herbalists 
solely for the use of bird-stuffers, who line the 
inside of their cases and decorate the branches of 
the miniature trees upon which the birds perch with 
it. There are also numerous specimens on the 
wall of the yellow parmelia, no less renowned than 
its congener in the annals of medicine as an astrin- 
gent and febrifuge. By Dr. Sander, in 1815, it was 
successfully administered as a substitute for Peru- 
vian bark in intermittent fevers ; the great Haller 
recommended its use as a tonic in diarrhoea and 
dysentery ; and Willemet gave it with success in 
cases of haemorrhages and autumnal contagious 
fluxes. In the arts it is employed at the present 
day as a dye-stuff, yielding a beautiful golden 
yellow crystallizable colouring matter, called chry- 
sophanic acid, which is nearly identical with the 
yellow colouring matter of rhubarb ; and, like litmus, 
it may be used as a test for alkalies, as they invari- 
ably communicate to its yellow colouring matter 
a beautiful red tint. It is the most ornamental 
of all our lichens. Its bright, golden thallus, spread- 
ing in circles two or three inches in diameter, and 
covered with numerous small orange shields, decks 
with lavish profusion the rough unmortared walls 
of the poor man's cottage ; and many a rich patch 
of it may be seen covering the crumbling stones of 
some hoary castle or long-ruined abbey as with a 
sunset glory. Growing in a concentric form, when 
it attains a certain size the central parts begin to 
decay and disappear, leaving only a narrow circular 



128 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

rim of living vegetable matter. In this manner it 
covers a whole wall or tree with spreading ripples 
of growth and decay — analogous to the fairy rings 
formed by the growth and decay of mushrooms in 
a grassy field. This yellow wafer of vegetation is 
attached to the stone by slender white hairs on the 
under surface, looking like roots, although they do 
not possess the power of selecting and appropriating 
the materials of growth peculiar to such organs. 
We know not by what means lichens derive nou- 
rishment. Some species certainly do disintegrate 
the stones on which they occur, and absorb the 
chemical and mineral substances which they con- 
tain, as is clearly proved when they are analysed. 
But a far more numerous class are found only on 
the hardest stones, so closely appressed and level 
with their surface that they seem to form an 
integral part of them. In this way they continue 
for years, ay centuries and ages, unchanged — their 
matrix as well as their own intense vitality resist- 
ing all decay. There are instances of encaustic 
lichens covering the glaciated surfaces of quartz on 
the summits of our highest hills, which may pro- 
bably be reckoned among the oldest of living 
organisms. Such species can obviously derive no 
benefit save mere mechanical support from their 
growing-place, and must procure their nourishment 
entirely from the atmosphere, and their colouring 
matter from solar reflection. 

The eye of the naturalist, educated by practice 
to almost microscopic keenness, can discern scat- 



in. J LICHENS. 129 

tered over the wall numerous other specimens of 
this singular vegetation, appearing like mere dis- 
colorations or weather-stains on the stones. Some 
are scaly fragments so minute as to require very close 
inspection to detect them. Others are indefinite 
films or nebulae of greyish matter, sprinkled with 
black dots about the size of a pin's head. Others 
are granular crusts of a circular form, with a zoned 
border ; and when two or three of them meet 
together, they do not coalesce and become ab- 
sorbed into one huge overgrown individual. The 
frontier of each is strictly preserved by a narrow 
black border, however it may grow and extend 
itself, as zealously as that of France or Austria. 
The law against removing a neighbour's land- 
mark is as strictly enforced in lichen as in human 
economy. When a stone is covered with a series 
of these independent lichens, it looks like a minia- 
ture map of Germany or America ; the zoned 
patches resembling the states, the black dots the 
towns, and the lines and cracks in the crust the 
rivers. There is one species growing on pure 
quartz, an exquisite piece of natural mosaic of 
glossy black and primrose yellow, called the 
geographical lichen from this resemblance. 

Several of the stones are sprinkled with a grey, 
green, or yellow powder, as dry and finely pul- 
verized as quicklime or sulphur. These grains 
are either the germs of lichens awaiting develop- 
ment, or they are individual vital cells, capable of 
growing into new plants, in the absence of proper 

K 



130 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

fruit. The pulverulent lichens are always barren, 
because a strict individualization of each cell is at 
variance with the regular formation of organic 
fructification, since in the latter the individuality of 
the separate cells appears most circumscribed and 
checked. It is difficult to distinguish these pul- 
verulent masses from the powder of chalk, verdi- 
gris, or sulphur ; and yet they are endowed with 
the most persistent vitality, which almost no ad- 
verse circumstances can extinguish. The principle 
of life resides in each of these grains as truly as 
in the most complicated organism ; and, though 
reduced here to the very simplest expression of 
which it is capable, it is not divested of its mystery, 
but on the contrary rendered more wonderful and 
incomprehensible. A wide and impassable barrier 
separates these life-particles from the grains of the 
stone on which they occur, and yet it is very diffi- 
cult in some cases to distinguish the one from the 
other. The extreme simplicity of structure dis- 
played by these protophytes is more puzzling to 
the botanist than any amount of complexity would 
have been. The rudimentary stages of all the 
flowerless plants appear in this singular form. The 
germs of a moss are similar to those of a lichen, 
and the germs of a lichen to those of a fern or 
sea-weed. These powdery grains represent the 
basis from which each separate system of life starts, 
to recede so widely in the highest forms of each 
order. The advocates of spontaneous generation 
or development — for there is essentially little dif- 



in.] DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 131 

ference between these two theories — have endea- 
voured to derive from this circumstance a plausible 
argument in support of their views. They assert 
that the germs of all cryptogamic plants are not 
only apparently, but essentially, the same ; and 
that the differences of their after development are 
owing to accidental circumstances of soil, situation, 
and other physical conditions. If they happen to 
fall upon decaying substances, they become fungi ; 
if they are scattered in soil, they become ferns or 
mosses ; if water is the medium in which they are 
produced, they grow into algae ; and on dry stones 
and living trees they spread into the flat crusts of 
lichens. Plausible as this idea looks, it is not borne 
out by experiment, for the same germs sown in the 
same soil, exposed to precisely similar conditions, 
develop one into a moss, another into a lichen, a 
third into a fungus, and a fourth into a fern ; showing 
clearly that though we cannot discover the difference 
between their rudimentary germs, a real distinction 
does nevertheless exist — that the seeds of these 
minute, insignificant plants are in reality as different 
from each other, as the seed of an apple-tree is dif- 
ferent from that of a pine or palm. The developments 
of nature are not regulated by accidents and caprices; 
they are the results of fixed, predetermined laws, 
operating in every part of every living organism, 
from the commencement of its growth to the end 
of its life-history. And the similarity which we 
find between them is not the consequence of a 
lineal descent of one from another, but only a 

K 2 



132 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

feature of the same grand plan of construction : 
the resemblance is not the result of anything in 
these forms themselves ; it is a purely intellectual 
relation of plan. With this small piece of granite 
before me, then, what solemn and far-reaching 
questions are connected ! Geologists of the Plu- 
tonian and Neptunian schools have keenly con- 
tested the mode of its formation ; while arguments 
drawn from the living particles of vegetation on its 
surface have been advanced in support of the 
" development " and " origin of species " theories. 
Could we explain the mysteries locked up in this 
little stone, we should be furnished with a key to 
the mysteries of the universe. 

When the powdery lichens occur in large quan- 
tities, they give a very picturesque effect to rocks, 
trees, and buildings. The trunks and branches of 
trees in the outskirts of large towns are covered 
with a green powder, fostered by the impurity of 
the air; a similar substance is also produced in 
damp, low-lying woods, where the trees are so 
densely crowded as to prevent proper ventilation 
and free admission of light. In Roslin Chapel, 
near Edinburgh, the curious effect of the rich 
carvings of the walls and pillars is greatly enhanced 
by a species of Lepraria, of a deep verdigris colour, 
covering them with the utmost profusion. It gives 
an appearance of hoary antiquity to the structure) 
and is the genuine hue of poetry and romance. 
On boarded buildings, old palings, and walls may 
be sometimes seen a greyish film sprinkled with 



in.] ST. WfNIFXEB'S BLOOD. 133 

very red particles, turning yellow if rubbed, and 
exhaling when moistened a very perceptible odour 
of violets ; from which circumstance it has obtained 
the name of Lepraria Jolithus. Linnaeus met with 
it frequently in his tour through CEland and East 
Gothland, covering the stones by the roadside with 
a blood-red pigment. It also spreads over the wet 
stones of St. Winifred's Well in North Wales, and 
is supposed to be the blood of the martyred saint — 
a superstition which, like the dark stain in the floor 
of Holyrood Palace, one has not the heart to dis- 
turb. I know not if others have realized the senti- 
ment, but I have often felt as if I could willingly 
have given up all the knowledge I possess of the 
structure and history of these obscure productions, 
in exchange for the power of being able to look 
upon them with the childish wonder which in early 
unscientific days they inspired. There is an air of 
mystery and obscurity about them peculiarly fas- 
cinating, which it is not desirable to dispel by the 
garish light of technical knowledge. Each one of 
them seemed a self-discovered treasure of child- 
hood, as much my own as if God had made it on 
purpose and presented it to me ; and it was ever a 
part of my joy to think that I had found some- 
thing which no one else knew or had seen before, 
and that I could bestow upon it pet names of 
my own. They were links connecting me with an 
unseen, unexplored world, where the marvellous 
was quite natural — parts of the scenery amid which 
elves and fairies, and all the denizens of the heaven 



134 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

that lies about us in our infancy, lived. So many 
strange things, the existence of which we never 
suspected, then presented themselves to our notice 
every day, that nothing seemed impossible or super- 
natural. Precise limits have now fixed for us the 
extent of our domain, and we know everything 
within it. " First a slight line, then a fence, then a 
wall ; then the wall will rise, will shut in the man, 
will form a prison, and to get out of it he must 
have wings. But around the child neither walls 
nor fences — a boundless extent, all irridescent with 
brilliant colours." How full to the brim with 
beauty were the flower-cups that were on a level 
with the eyes of the little botanist. We men 
have outgrown the flower and all its mystical 
loveliness ! 

It is among the mosses of the wall, however, 
that the richest harvest of beauty and interest 
may be gathered. Long have my mingled wonder 
and admiration been given to these tiny forms 
of vegetable life — beautiful in every situation — 
spreading on the floor of ancient forests, yielding 
carpets that " steal all noises from the foot," and 
over which the golden sunbeams chase each other 
in waves of light and shade throughout the long 
summer day — throwing over the decaying tree and 
the mouldering ruin a veil of delicate beauty — 
honoured everywhere of God to perform a most 
important though unnoticed part in this great 
creation. Well do I remember the bright July 
afternoon when their wonderful structure and pecu- 



in.] THEOLOG Y OF MOSSES. 135 

liarities were first unveiled to me by one long since 
dead, whose cultivated eye saw strange loveliness 
in things which others idly passed, and whose 
simple warm heart was ever alive to the mute 
appeals of humblest wild flower or tiniest moss. 
There was opened up to me that day a new world 
of hitherto undreamt-of beauty and intellectual 
delight ; in the structural details of the moss which 
illustrated the lesson I got a glimpse of some 
deeper aspect of the Divine character than mere 
intelligence. Methought I saw Him not as the 
mere contriver or designer, but in His own loving 
nature, having His tender mercies over all His 
works — displaying care for helplessness and minute- 
ness — care for beauty in the works of nature, 
irrespective of final ends or utilitarian purposes. 
Small as the object before me was, I was impressed 
— in the wonder of its structure, at once a means 
and an end, beautiful in itself and performing its 
beautiful uses in nature — not with the limited in- 
genuity of a finite, but with the wisdom and love 
of an Infinite Spirit. To that one unforgotten 
lesson, improved by much study of these little 
objects alike in the closet and in the field, I owe 
many moments of pure happiness, the memory of 
which I would not part with for all the costly, 
painted pleasures, to gather which, as they ripen 
high on the wall, the world impatiently tramples 
down things that are far sweeter and more lasting. 

A careful search will reveal upwards of a score 
of mosses on our garden wall, in almost every 



] 36 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

stage of growth, from a dim film of greenness to 
radiating plumes spreading over the stones, and 
cushion-like tufts projecting out of the crevices, 
and crowned with a forest of pink fruit-covered 
stems. One is amazed at the exuberance of life 
displayed on so small and unpromising a surface. 
It gives us a more graphic idea than we commonly 
possess of the vast and varied resources of creation. 
Though so much alike in their general appearance 
as to be often confounded by a superficial eye, all 
these species are truly distinct ; and when closely 
examined exhibit very marked and striking dif- 
ferences. They are not slightly varying expres- 
sions and modifications of the same Divine idea ; 
but rather different ideas of creative thought. 
Each of them stands for a separate revelation of 
the Infinite Mind ; and the fact that the same 
plan of construction, the same type of character, 
runs through them all, only indicates that there is 
everywhere, in the minutest as well as most con- 
spicuous parts of creation, an undeviating regard 
to unity and harmony. 

Prominent among these mosses are the curious 
little tortulas, found abundantly on every old wall 
— when there is sufficient moisture and shade — but 
loving especially the rude stone gable and thatched 
roof of the Highland cottage, covering them with 
deep cushions of verdure till the whole structure 
appears more like a work of nature than man's 
handiwork. I have always great pleasure in look- 
ing at this tribe of mosses through a lens. The 



in.] SCREW-MOSS. 137 

leaves are beautifully transparent and reticulated, 
and readily revive, when scorched and shrivelled by 
the sunshine, under the first shower of rain. The 
most noticeable thing about the tortulas is the 
curious fringe which covers the mouth of the seed- 
vessel. In all the species, of which there are about 
fourteen in this country, the fringe is twisted in 
different ways like the wick of a candle. This 
peculiarity may be easily seen by the naked eye, 
as it projects considerably beyond the fruit-vessel, 
and is of a lighter colour; but the microscope 
reveals it in all its beauty. It is a wide departure 
from the ordinary type, according to which the 
teeth of the fruit-vessel are made to lock into each 
other, and thus form a wheel-like lid, composed of 
separate spokes, which fill up the aperture. The 
great length of the teeth in the tortulas prevents 
this arrangement of them ; their tops are therefore 
twisted, as the farmer twists the sheaves at the top 
of his wheat-stack, so as to keep- out the rain ; and 
this plan seems to answer the purpose as effectually 
as the normal one. Some of the tortula tufts are 
of a pale reddish colour, as if withered by old age, 
or scorched by the sun. This peculiar blight ex- 
tends in a circular form from the centre to the 
circumference of a tuft, where filmy grey textures, 
like fragments of a spider's web interweaving 
among the leaves, proclaim the presence of an 
obscure fungus, in whose deadly embrace the moss 
has perished. Thus even the humblest kinds of 
life are preyed upon by others still humbler in the 



138 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

scale ; and perhaps there is no self-existent organic 
structure in nature. Besides this parasite, there 
are other species of life nourished by these tufts. 
If one of them be saturated with moisture, and a 
drop squeezed out upon a glass, and placed under 
a good microscope, the muddy liquid will be found 
swarming with animalculas, little animated cells, 
wandering with electric activity amid the endless 
mazes of the strange forest-vegetation ; and among 
them there is sure to be one or more lordly Roti- ~ 
feras, lengthening and contracting their transparent 
bodies as they glide rapidly out of view, or halting 
a moment to protrude and whirl their wheel-like 
ciliae in the process of feeding — the most interesting 
of microscopic spectacles. 

One of the commonest of the mosses on the wall 
is the little grey Grimmia; looking, with its brown 
capsules nestling among the leaves, like tiny round 
cushions stuck full of pins. The nerves of the 
leaves project beyond the point, and give an ap- 
pearance of hoariness to the plant, in fine keeping 
with the antique character of the wall. This moss 
grows on the barest and hardest surfaces — on granite 
and trap rocks, where not a particle of soil can 
lodge ; and yet every cushion of it rests comfortably 
upon a considerable quantity of earth carefully 
gathered within its leaves, which must have been 
blown there as dust by the wind, or disintegrated 
by its own roots from the substance of the rock. 
Our garden wall displays two or three tiny tufts of 
a curious moss occurring not very frequently on 



in.] APPLE-MOSS. 139 

moist shady walls built with lime. It is called the 
Extinguisher moss, because the cover of the fruit- 
vessel is exactly like the extinguisher of a candle, 
or the calyx of the yellow garden Esckoltzia. We 
have also a few specimens, in the more retired cre- 
vices, of the Bartramia, or apple-moss — one of the 
loveliest of all the species — with its bright green 
hairy cushions and round capsules, like fairy apples. 
It fruits most abundantly in spring, appearing in 
1 its full beauty when the primrose makes mimic 
sunshine on the brae, and the cuckoo gives an air 
of enchantment to the hazel copse. A subalpine 
species, it is somewhat uncommon in lowland dis- 
tricts ; but it would be well worth while to grow it 
in a fernery. Its Latin name appropriately perpe- 
tuates the memory of John Bartram — one of the 
most devoted of American naturalists — a simple 
farmer and self-taught, yet a man of great and 
varied attainments, concealed by a too modest and 
retiring disposition. Linnaeus pronounced him " the 
greatest natural botanist in the world." It is a 
touching thing to think of the names of scientific 
men, great in their own generation, being linked 
with such obscure and fragile memorials. They 
have passed away, and with them the memory of 
all they achieved ; and nothing now speaks of them 
save a little plant, of which not one in a thousand 
has ever heard, and which only a few naturalists 
see at rare intervals. There are hundreds of such 
names in the nomenclature of botany, worthy of a 
prominent and enduring remembrance, of which 



140 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

almost nothing more is known than this simple 
association. It is the plant alone that perpetuates 
them — history and epitaph all in one — like the 
chronology of the antediluvian patriarchs ; and we 
are apt to smile when we read of the gratification 
which the illustrious Linnaeus felt when the little 
bell-flowered Linnma, pride of the Swedish woods, 
was baptized with his name — regarding it as a 
pledge of immortality; for if there had been nothing 
but this floral link to connect his memory with 
future ages, very few would have known that there 
ever was such a man. 

The line of turf along the top of the wall is a 
perfect Lilliputian garden. It bears a bright and 
interesting succession of plants from January to 
December. The little lichens and mosses claim 
exclusive possession of it during the winter months; 
for these simple hardy forms of life are most luxu- 
riant when the weather is most severe ; they are 
the first to come to any spot, and the last to leave 
it — growing through sunshine and gloom with meek 
and unruffled serenity. There are whole colonies 
of that most social of all cryptogams, the hair 
moss, looking, with their stiff and rigid leaves, like 
a forest of miniature aloes ; preserving during sum- 
mer and autumn a uniform dull green appearance, 
but breaking out in spring into a multitude of little 
cups of a brilliant crimson colour, nestling among 
the uppermost leaves, and rivalling in beauty the 
gayest blossoms of flowers. Hardly less interesting 
are the scores of cup-lichens — holding up in thtir 



in.] MINUTE LIFE FORMS 141 

mealy sulphur-coloured goblets dewy offerings to 
the sun, like vegetable Ganymedes. And the lover 
of the curious will be sure to notice the livid 
leathery leaves of the dog lichen, tipped with brown 
shields like finger-nails, that grow redder in the 
piercing Christmas cold — bringing us back in fancy 
to the days of Dr. Mead, the famous physician and 
friend of Pope, Bentham, and Newton, by whom it 
was first brought into notice as a remedy for hydro- 
phobia. These and numerous other minute forms, 
too obscure to mention, may be seen all the year 
round; and dim though the sunbeams of winter 
may be, they search them out in their hidden 
nooks, and stimulate them to life and energy, and 
the glow of sunrise or sunset, that sets a mountain 
range on fire, rests lovingly on the smallest moss or 
lichen, intimating that it too has its place and its 
relations in this wide universe. When the first mild 
days of early spring come, the Draba, or whitlow- 
grass, puts forth its tiny white flowers, and greets 
the returning warmth, when there is not a daisy in 
the meadow, or a single golden blossom on the 
whinny hill-side. Then follows a bright array of 
chance wild flowers, wayward adventurers, whose 
seeds the winds have wafted or the birds have 
dropped upon this elevated site, their colours deep- 
ening as the season advances — old thyme, ever 
new, hanging down in fragrant festoons of purple; 
yellow bedstraw — the Chrysohoe of flowers — like 
masses of golden foam, scenting the breeze with 
honey sweetness, and ever murmurous with bees ; 



142 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

chimes of blue-bells hanging from the wall as from 
a belfry, and tolling with their rich peal of bells — 
which the soul alone can hear — the knell of the 
departing flowers. A fringe of soft meadow-grass 
covers the turf, whose silken greenness forms the 
ground colour on which these bright patterns are 
embroidered ; while its silvery panicles hang in all 
their airy grace over the flowers, like gossamer 
veils, greatly enhancing their beauty. That patch 
of grass softens no human footfall of care, but it is 
refreshing to the eye, and the robin rests upon it, 
as it pours out its low sweet chant, according well 
with the sere leaves and the dim stillness of au- 
tumn, the calm decay of earth, and the peace divine 
of heaven. I love, in the silent eve, when there is 
scarcely a breath in the garden, and the sunset is 
flushing the flowers and purpling the hills, to sit 
near that richly-decorated wall, in full view of its 
autumn flowers, smiling on the lap of death, for 
ever perishing, but immortal — joys that have come 
down to us pure and unstained from Eden, and 
amid a world of progress will be transmitted with- 
out a single leaf being changed to the latest gene- 
ration. Looking at them, and feeling to the full 
the beauty and wonder of the world, I enjoy all 
that the coming centuries can bestow upon the 
wisest and the happiest of our race. Voiceless 
though they are, they have a secret power to thrill 
my heart to its very core. They speak of hope 
and love, bright as their own hue, and vague as 
their perfume; they speak of the mystery of human 



ill.] THE ROSE OF SHARON. 143 

life, its beautiful blossoming and its sudden fading ; 
and, more than all, they speak of Him, who, holy, 
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, found 
on earth most congenial fellowship with these em- 
blems of purity and innocence; whose favourite 
resort was the garden of Gethsemane; whose lesson 
of faith and trust in Providence was illustrated by 
the growth of the lilies ; and who, at last — as the 
Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley — was 
laid in a sepulchre in a garden, leaving behind there 
a sweet and lasting perfume, which makes the 
grave to all who fall asleep in Him a bed of sweet 
and refreshing rest 



CHAPTER IV. 

A RAMBLE THROUGH NORWAY, THE CRADLE OF 
THE HIGHLAND FLORA. 

HAVING exhausted the botany of the British hills, 
I was anxious to study our Alpine plants in their 
original centre of distribution, to compare the forms 
which they present under different conditions of 
soil, climate, exposure, &c. ; and thus ascertain the 
value of the distinctions, not merely among the 
species reputed to be doubtful, but also among 
those commonly considered to be well-established. 
For this purpose I undertook, two summers ago, 
along with some friends, a short tour in Norway. 
I went first to Denmark, a country which holds 
out many inducements to the botanist, and presents 
peculiar facilities for exploring, the expense of 
travelling being extremely moderate, the language 
interposing but few difficulties to one who knows 
broad Scotch and low German, and the plants of 
the woods and marshes being singularly attractive 
and interesting. The " Flora Danica," a splendid 
work of some twenty volumes, exquisitely illus- 
trated, contains a great many species that are 
common in this country; while it gives an admi- 



chap, iv.] BEECH-WOODS. 145 

rable idea of the character of the Scandinavian 
vegetation as a whole. 

The beech-woods are the most remarkable feature 
of Denmark. They clothe the whole face of the 
country, except the cultivated parts, giving it a 
soft, rich, languid look, exceedingly pleasing to 
the eye of one accustomed to the bleak hills and 
pine-woods of the Scottish Highlands. Hardly 
any other tree besides the beech is seen in these 
forests now; but it was not always so. Denmark 
is a palimpsest of three distinct layers of arboreal 
vegetation. In the lowest stratum of the bogs 
trunks and other portions of Scotch fir-trees are 
found ; above this layer is a distinctly-marked 
stratum in which nothing but remains of oak 
occur ; while the surface of the country is covered 
with flourishing beech-forests. These changes in 
the character of the woods indicate corresponding 
changes in the character of the climate ; for the 
oak is now a rare tree in the country, and the 
Scotch fir is never seen, being unsuited to the 
altered circumstances. The age of these extinct 
forests is a much-disputed question. Worsa, the 
able director of the Museum of Northern Anti- 
quities in Copenhagen, showed me several very 
interesting human relics dug from these deposits, 
which must have belonged to the Bronze period, 
and probably dated no further back than the time 
of Abraham. The antiquity of the Danish Kjok- 
kenmodings, like that of the Swiss Pfahlbauten, 
has been unduly stretched. But apart from 

L 



146 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

archaeological speculations, which in such spots 
are irresistibly suggested, nothing can be more 
delightful than a ramble among the beech-woods 
in the neighbourhood of Copenhagen on a hot 
summer day. The shadows are so cool and deep ; 
the belts of golden light that lie across the green- 
sward at every opening among the trees are so 
bright and sunny ; the far-stretching vistas so 
mysterious and seductive to the imagination ; and 
the trunks and branches of the beeches so smooth, 
round, and well-filled, and so covered with heavy 
masses of beautiful transparent foliage, that you 
feel as if in an enchanted place. You think long- 
ingly of the long-ago times when an English 
county merited its beautiful poetical name of 
" Buckinghamshire/' — " the home of the beech- 
trees ;" beech being the modern form of the old 
Teutonic buck or buck} From a rising ground, 

1 There are some interesting peculiarities in the geographical dis- 
tribution of the beech. It is the tree which ascends highest on the 
Apennines, forming large forests immediately below the zone of the 
Alpine plants. On Gran Sasso d' Italia, the loftiest peak of the range, 
it flourishes luxuriantly at a height of 6,000 feet above the Adriatic ; 
not far from the line of perpetual snow. On other mountain chains 
it is the birch or the pine which ascends the highest, and adjoins the 
zone of the Alpine flora. In Norway the beech is unknown, save 
in the extreme south and in the plains; while in the Alps it occurs 
only in the lower valleys. On the Apennines it ascends several 
thousand feet above the region in which corn can be cultivated, and 
where man lives permanently ; and yet corn is grown as far north as 
Lapland, and a few patches of it ripen even at Hammerfest. The 
reason of this is that the beech is affected by the heat of the whole 
year, while the corn depends upon the summer heat. The heat of 
summer in the Arctic circle is much greater than at a height of 6 ? ooo 



iv.] PLANTS OF THE BEECH-WOODS, 147 

through a break in the forest, you catch a 
glimpse of the blue waters of the Sound flashing 
in the sunlight, with white, spirit-like sails flitting 
to and fro over its placid bosom : you thus feel that 
the place is haunted for ever by harmonies of winds 
and waves — visited by delicate influences from 
sea and land. Occasionally, at the end of a vista 
among the trees, a solitary deer may be seen 
feeding, or pausing to gaze at the stranger, and 
gliding silent as a shadow into the remoter recesses. 
The ground is everywhere enamelled with the 
wild flowers which we see in our own woodlands ; 
and every sight and sound are so homelike that 
it is difficult to realize the idea that one is in a 
foreign land. I saw large patches of the yellow 
wood-anemone (A. Ranuncidoides) and of the gunl 
fugls melk (yellow bird's milk), Ornithogalum 
luteum, but they were both past flowering. When 
in full bloom, in spring, they make the woods 
quite a California. In this primitive country 
almost every plant is known to the peasant, and 

feet in Italy, while the cold of winter is much more severe. Altitude 
and latitude, which correspond so far as herbaceous plants depending 
upon summer heat are concerned, do not correspond so far as trees 
which depend upon a certain degree of heat all the year round are 
concerned. It is because of the somewhat uniform annual tempera- 
ture of the Antarctic regions — less warm in summer and less cold in 
winter — that the Evergreen beech [Fagus Forsteri) forms the cha- 
racteristic woods of Terra del Fuego, and the Antarctic beech grows 
even farther south in the Antarctic regions, while no species of beech 
can flourish in the extreme climate of the Arctic regions. The 
abundance and beauty of the beech in Denmark is doubtless owing 
to the same cause. 

L 2 



148 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

associated with some quaint incident. I was greatly- 
struck with the beauty of the lichens, mosses, 
and fungi, which grew upon the trunks of the 
trees, and especially upon the fallen ones, in 
moist and shady spots. Many of the beeches 
were sprinkled with the rich yellow powder of 
the lichen calicmm ; others were covered with 
the chocolate patches of the tamarisk scale-moss ; 
while on several prostrate trunks I found the 
curious fungus Dcedalea growing to an enormous 
size, and exhibiting on the under side its intricate 
sinuosities, like a Chinese carving in ivory. I 
gathered some foreign plants which afford an 
illustration of the curious way in which the flora 
of one country finds its way to another. When 
the statues which Thorwaldsen sent from Rome 
were unpacked in Copenhagen, several flowers 
sprang up very soon after in the neighbourhood 
formerly unknown. It seems that the sculptures 
were carefully wrapped round with bands of hay 
from the Campagna, containing the seeds of plants 
peculiar to Italy. Might not the incident be 
regarded as typical of Thorwaldsen's own genius, 
which had grown and been developed in the 
Eternal City, and at last blossomed in old age in 
his native place ? I observed in moist, rocky dells, 
among th<e n&oss, great quantities of the Primula 
farinosa. The leaves and stalks were powdered 
with the characteristic lemon-dust, but the beautiful 
lilac flowers were overpassed, and fruit formed. 
In early May the market-women come into town, 



iv.] REPOSE OF DANISH SCENE R Y. 149 

bearing basket-loads of this lovely flower tied in 
little nosegays. The glens of Lyngby and Ramlosa 
are covered with it in spring. Many spots in the 
neighbourhood of Copenhagen in this delicious 
season are like the Vale of Tempe. Indeed, at any 
time, nothing can be more soothing to ruffled 
nerves than the serenity and loveliness of Danish 
scenery. Doctors should send their patients, jaded 
and excited by the hurry and over-work of our 
large towns, to these peaceful drowsy retreats, 
where the very spirit of repose has made its home 
and the mere fact of existence is a delight. 
Denmark is indeed a land where it seems always 
afternoon ; and the lotus-eater can wander day 
after day among its beech-woods, and never weary 
of the monotony. 

But we tore ourselves away ere the beech-woods 
had completely bewitched us with their sorceries. 
More bracing and stimulating work awaited us 
among the dark fjords, snowy fjelds, and pine- 
forests of Norway. This country possesses a pe- 
culiar interest to a Scotchman, not only because 
it is the original home of the Highland flora, but 
chiefly on account of its former intimate connexion 
with the northern and eastern parts of Scotland 
Colonies of Norsemen occupied these parts suffi- 
ciently long to effect a radical change in the 
appearance and manners of the primitive inha- 
bitants — transforming the undersized Celt, afraid 
of the sea, into the bold, adventurous, finely- 
developed seaman. From this source were derived 



1 5 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

the fair hair, blue eyes, and straight limbs which 
characterise a large proportion of our seafaring 
population, as well as the names so common 
among them, ending in son, Anderson, Henderson, 
Johnston, Paterson — which are the most frequent 
at the present day in Norway — and the peculiar 
terms applied to the Scottish firths, bays, and 
promontories. With pleasant hopes kindled by 
these associations, we embarked on Wednesday, 
25th June, on board the Viken, a Government 
steamer regularly plying in the postal service 
between Copenhagen and Christiania. Our pas- 
sage was a somewhat stormy one among the 
white waves of the Cattegat. But after we had 
passed Gottenburg, on the Swedish coast, at which 
we had called about two o'clock next morning, 
when the town was buried in profound repose, ail 
the rest of the voyage was calm and beautiful, and 
there was nothing to mar our high enjoyment of 
the wonderful intricacy and picturesque shores and 
islands of the Christiania Fjord. Retiring to rest 
after leaving Moss glowing with the indescribable 
hues of a northern sunset, we awoke from a very 
unrefreshing sleep about six o'clock on Friday 
morning, and found the steamer quietly moored 
to the quay of Christiania. 

The morning was very bright and sunny. 
Hastily dressing ourselves and collecting our traps* 
we stepped ashore, glad enough to exchange the 
heaving deep for solid earth, and the coffin-like 
airless berths of the steamer for a limitless supply 



iv.] CHRISTIANIA. 151 

of fresh air, blowing from the hills of Gamle 
Norge. A few leisurely porters and drowsy- 
Government officials, blinking in the sun, were 
lounging about, and neither bustle nor business 
reminded us that we were standing on the quay 
of a metropolis. After waiting a while, a custom- 
house officer condescended to examine our lug- 
gage, with his hands in his pockets and a cigar 
in his mouth ; and as we carried no contraband 
goods, not even a flask of Glenlivet or a canister 
of " bird's-eye," we were let off very easily, and 
our crumpled toggery was speedily repacked. We 
tried two of the hotels which the English are in 
the habit of frequenting, but fortunately for our 
purses we found them quite full, and were at last 
obliged to take refuge in the Hotel Scandinavie, 
where we were charged something like native 
prices, and had no reason to complain either of 
the fare or the attention. We were told that it 
was a great gala day in Christiania, a market 
being held there called St. Hans' Fair, at which 
timber-merchants from every part of Norway 
meet to buy and sell wood. We should certainly 
not have found out this fact ourselves, for the 
streets appeared to us exceedingly quiet and 
deserted, only two or three people at long intervals 
walking very slowly along the rough pavement, 
smoking the eternal cigar, and wearing an air of 
leisureliness and repose, as if they were the heirs 
expectant of time, most provoking to a fidgety 
and active Englishman. Most of the population 



1 52 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

seemed to have congregated in our hotel, over- 
flowing bedrooms, stairs, and lobbies, treading on 
each other's toes, distracting the hapless waiters 
by their multifarious commands, and filling all 
the air with a confused clattering of unknown 
tongues. 

Christiania does not awaken much admiration in 
a stranger's mind. It is a very small city to be a 
capital, and none of the buildings are either ancient 
or imposing ; most of the picturesque log-houses 
that used to exist having been destroyed by fire 
and replaced by plain brick buildings without any 
architectural features. There are few shops, and 
these generally small and shabby, dealing in mis- 
cellaneous ware, like a druggist's emporium in an 
English country village. The best places of busi- 
ness are in the Kirke-gaden ; but the Norwegians 
have so little skill and taste in displaying their 
goods in the windows, that even the finest shops 
present but a poor appearance outside. Some 
beautiful pieces of filigree silver, of native metal 
and manufacture, may be purchased in this quarter, 
as well as very ingenious specimens of Norwegian 
carving, an art in which the inhabitants, especially 
of Telemarken, rival the Swiss and Germans ; but 
the prices to English visitors are generally very 
high. The people in their intercourse with one 
another and in their business transactions outdo 
the Parisians themselves in politeness. Their hats 
are more frequently in their hands than on their 
heads ; and the magnificent sweep of the bow. with 



iv.] THE PA LA CE. 153 

which one grocer acknowledges the presence of 
another in the street always elicited my unqualified 
admiration. The free and independent British 
tourist, who persists in wearing his hat alike under 
the dome of St. Peter's at Rome and in a 
Christiania curiosity shop, suffers immensely by 
the comparison ; and a blush of guilt rose to my 
own cheek on more than one occasion, when, in 
momentary forgetfulness that I was not at home, 
I entered a shop with my hat on, and was recalled 
to painful consciousness by the significant panto- 
mime of the shopkeeper. If slaves cannot breathe 
in England, Quakers certainly could not exist in 
Norway. 

The only buildings that are at all handsome are 
the Storthing or House of Commons, where the 
Parliament of Norway meets once every three 
years to transact during three months a very large 
amount of gossip and a very small amount of busi- 
ness ; the university, with its library and museums; 
and the palace of the king, situated on a command- 
ing eminence above the town, and surrounded by 
gardens kept in a very slovenly style, the walks of 
which are a favourite promenade of the citizens in 
the cool of the evening. We visited this palace. It 
was guarded by a solitary shabbily-dressed sentinel, 
who paced slowly backwards and forwards with a 
slouching gait, stopping every ten minutes to rub a 
lucifer match against the wall of the building and 
light a penny cigar. We asked him if we could 
get admittance, and he pointed out to us a small 



154 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

side door, at which we knocked. A tall, fat, good- 
natured woman appeared, and, conducting us 
through a series of underground passages, brought 
us up to the principal entrance-hall, from whence 
we followed her over the whole building. We found 
the palace of Charles XV. very similar to other 
palaces. There were great rooms of state with 
much bizarre gilding and little comfort ; and there 
were small rooms with little gilding and great snug- 
ness. The private apartments of the king, queen, 
and heir to the throne were very plainly furnished ; 
and the bedrooms in which royalty takes the sleep 
that, according to the Turkish proverb, makes 
pashas of us all, had small curtainless beds like 
sofas, and couches draped with a very threadbare- 
looking tartan of the clan M'Tavish. I suppose 
the descendant of Bernadotte, on the same etymo- 
logical principle that Donizetti was proved to be 
the Italianized form of the Celtic Donald Izzet, 
was a ninety-second cousin of some Highland 
family, and therefore took the tartan. The view of 
the fjord and surrounding country which we ob- 
tained from the leaden roof was truly magnificent, 
and decidedly the most regal thing about the palace. 
A wide expanse of sea stretched out before us, calm 
and blue as an inland lake, studded with innumer- 
able islands, covered with ships and boats sailing 
in every direction, each floating double, ship and 
shadow, in the transparent water, and bounded in the 
d istance by an irregular grouping of picturesque hills, 
which gave the fjord a varied outline like the Lake 



iv.] ENVIRONS OF CHRISTIANIA. 155 

of the Four Cantons in Switzerland. Immediately 
below was the old romantic castle of Aggershuus, 
situated on a bold promontory of the sea, and 
adorned with fine avenues of linden-trees along the 
ramparts. This castle was besieged and taken by 
the redoubtable Charles XII. of Sweden, and now 
contains the regalia and the state records of Nor- 
way. Close to the old town rose up the hill of 
Egeberg, richly cultivated and wooded to the top, 
and commanding an extensive prospect on every 
side. Westwards, the white tower of Oscar's Hall 
— a summer residence of the King of Norway, and 
containing a fine series of Tidemand's paintings — 
peeped out with picturesque effect from the midst 
of a perfect nest of foliage, while the landscape in 
that direction was perfected by the snow-capped 
mountains of Valders and Telemarken visible in the 
far background. Everywhere there were rich woods, 
not only of pine and fir, but of deciduous trees, 
elm, plane, ash, lilacs, and laburnums, growing in 
the utmost luxuriance. On every side there were 
cultivated fields, picturesque groups of rocks, gleam- 
ing waters, rugged hills, and elegant villas em- 
bosomed among fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. 
I know of no town that has so many country- 
houses scattered around it; and it would be difficult 
to say which of them is most beautifully situated. 
Each has its own separate view, its own woody 
knoll, and cultivated field, and rocky islet, and vista 
of the fjord. And this wondrous combination of 
art and nature makes the environs of Christiania 



156 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

quite a fairy scene. The sky, too, was so mellow 
and blue, the air so clear and sunny, and the 
colouring of the landscape so intense and glowing, 
that I almost fancied myself in Italy instead of on 
the 6oth degree of north latitude— in the parallel 
of the Shetland Islands. The only scenery which 
the view from the palace suggested to me was the 
southern extremity of the Lake of Geneva, looking 
across the outskirts of the town to the Jura moun- 
tains ; but the comparison is greatly in favour of 
Christiania. 

We paid a visit, as in duty bound, to Mr. Bennett, 
who is the great authority on matters Norwegian 
to all Englishmen — reverenced by them almost as 
much as Murray or Bradshaw. He lives amid a 
curious collection of novels, (t Leisure Hours," old 
broken-down carrioles, silver drinking-cups, and a 
lot of mixed pickles and Worcester sauce ; the last 
supposed to be absolutely essential to the existence 
of the British tourist in Norway. He act? in so 
many capacities that he must be a kind of universal 
genius, being antiquary, librarian, purveyor, cus- 
tom-house agent, Deus ex machina of the Christiania 
Carriole Company, and last, not least, churchwarden 
and collector of subscriptions for the English chapel 
in town. He has done, I have heard, many kind 
and disinterested acts to strangers introducing 
themselves to him ; and he has been repaid in too 
many instances by dishonesty and ingratitude. We 
did not need the aid of his topographical know- 
ledge, however, as we had previously sketched out 



iv.] THE MIOSEN LAKE. 157 

our tour with remarkable fulness, and were deter- 
mined to adhere to the programme in every parti- 
cular. We therefore contented ourselves with 
buying from him the last edition of the " Lomme 
reiseroute," or Government road-book, and a trans- 
lation or commentary upon it in English, called 
" Bennett's Handbook," both of which we found 
exceedingly useful, indeed indispensable, on the 
journey ; for an appeal to the prices of posting 
marked in the " Lomme reiseroute " was never 
disputed by the station-house keepers, and it saved 
much loss of temper and waste of time in haggling 
about payment. 

Having seen all that was to be seen in the way 
of curiosities about Christiania — which certainly 
was not much — we took out tickets on the follow- 
ing Saturday for a short ride of forty-five miles on 
one of the only two railways in all Norway, as far 
as Eidsvold, the Norwegian Runnymede. The 
railway was constructed by British navvies, and the 
railway carriages were made in Birmingham. Proud 
of our country's universal services to humanity, we 
rolled along at the rate of eight miles an hour, over 
a broken country of pine-woods, lakes, and rocky 
foregrounds, till we came at last to the scene of the 
Convention which framed the present admirable 
constitution of Norway. Here we embarked on 
the Miosen Lake in a steamer, boasting the funny 
name of Skibladner, so called from Odin's magical 
pocket-ship. This lake is the largest in Norway, 
being 63 miles long and about 7 broad. It is very 



158 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

highly praised by the Norwegians, and the scenery 
on its banks is considered the finest they have. 
This is owing, however, to the same law of contrast 
which made the Swiss peasant say to the Dutchman, 
when told that Holland had not a single mountain, 
"Ah! yours must be a fine country." The Nor- 
wegians have so little arable land, and such an 
overwhelming preponderance of huge barren moun- 
tains and rocky plateaux, that the scarcer article as 
usual is most valued, and the profitable is preferred 
to the picturesque. The proportion of soil under 
culture, or capable of being cultivated, to the entire 
extent of the country is not more than one to one 
hundred ; while upwards of forty per cent, of the 
surface of the southern half exceeds 3,000 feet 
above the level of the sea. We were a good deal 
disappointed in the scenery, having heard it com- 
pared to Lake Como, with which it has not a single 
feature in common. It is a fine sheet of water for 
boating purposes and for the transport of timber, 
through many rafts of which the steamer in some 
places fought its way ; but the shores at the lower 
extremity are banks of bare clay, crowned on the 
top with a few miserable birches, and farther up 
the land around it lies low, and is thickly dotted 
with red wooden farmhouses and variegated by 
potato and corn fields ; while the hills beyond are 
of no great elevation, and are covered with inter- 
minable forests of sombre pines, which produce a 
melancholy impression by their extreme monotony 
—especially when, as is usually the case, the sky 



iv.] LOVE OF FLOWERS. 159 

overhead is grey and cloudy. We landed at about 
half-past nine at night at a pretty large village at 
the head of the lake, called Lillehammer, amid the 
silver splendours of a very singular sunset. This 
village is built upon an elevated terrace, a consider- 
able distance above the shore of the lake, and com- 
mands a most extensive view. Bare brown moun- 
tains sprinkled with patches of snow gird the 
horizon, and give an air of Alpine loneliness and 
wildness to a landscape that would otherwise have 
been too rich and luxuriant The houses, which 
are all built of wood, are very clean-looking, and 
neatly painted in pale colours of pink, yellow, and 
green, which are frequently renewed. Many of 
them are surrounded by gardens and orchards, or 
embosomed among clumps of white - stemmed 
birches and purple lilacs. In every window of 
every house, even the poorest, are pots of the most 
brilliant flowers, roses, calceolarias, verbenas, gera- 
niums, petunias, and many other plants, which one 
would not expect to see in such a latitude. They 
are most carefully and skilfully tended ; and even 
in a duke's conservatory such perfectly-formed and 
gorgeous blossoms are rare. The love of flowers 
is quite a passion with the Norwegians. Go where 
you will — in the large towns and in the loneliest 
parts of the country — you will find the windows of 
the houses filled with the choicest plants, even the 
humblest making an effort to grow something green 
and brightly-coloured, that may remind them of a 
world of beauty beyond their own bleak hills. A 



160 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

philosopher like him who made out murder to be 
one of the fine arts, who is fond of tracing the final 
causes of human phenomena, might find the reason 
of this universal floral mania an interesting subject 
of speculation. It may be caused by the love of 
contrast ; the eye seeking relief in the bright colours 
of roses, geraniums, and calceolarias, from the ex- 
treme monotony of the green pine-forests and dark 
brown fjelds. At any rate, the red and other gay 
colours of the dwelling-houses, and the Oriental 
brilliancy of the costumes of the people, may 
fairly, I think, be attributed to this cause. 

We spent the Sunday in the village, and had the 
privilege of worshipping in a little Lutheran church 
not far from Hamar's inn, where we stayed. It 
was a welcome rest to body and soul. The day 
was very beautiful, calm and soft, with wandering 
gleams of sunshine breaking through the grey 
clouds, and illuminating here and there the shadowy 
pine-woods and the cornfields with a more vivid 
greenness. The lake lay still as a mirror below, 
with belts of light and shade crossing its bosom, 
and yellow timber rafts lying motionless along its 
shores. At intervals the mellow monotone of the 
cuckoo, whose Norwegian name gowk is the same 
as the Scotch, came from the far-off pine-woods ; 
nearer at hand, in the green fields, the corn-craik 
uttered its harsh cry ; while the roar of the numer- 
ous waterfalls of the Mesna, a powerful stream that 
flows through the village down into the lake, 
sounded very loud in the universal Sabbath still- 



iv.] PINE- WOODS OF LILLEHAMMER. 161 

ness. After dinner I walked up the heights into 
the shadows of the pine-woods. I sat down with 
my Bible in a very peaceful and beautiful sanctuary 
of nature. Before me, a fine cascade gleamed white 
through the trees, and filled the wood with its 
psalm of praise. Around me, the red trunks of the 
pines stretched away into endless vistas of green 
loneliness and odorous gloom. The ground every- 
where was carpeted with rich and rare mosses — 
cushions of that loveliest species, the ostrich plume 
feather moss, and tufts of the Lycopodium annotinum. 
There was one splendid lichen peculiar to Norway 
and the Arctic regions, called Nephroma arctica, 
which I saw in this wood for the first time. It 
formed an immense rosette, upwards of a foot in 
diameter, of primrose yellow lobes, their under side 
tipped like finger-nails with the rich chocolate- 
coloured fructification. It was really a most beau- 
tiful plant, spreading over the ground everywhere, 
and would have been more in keeping with the luxu- 
riance of a tropical forest than with the monotony 
of a Norwegian pine-wood. The mossy carpet was 
starred with fragile wood-sorrels and white coral- 
like bilberry blossoms. I read the first chapter of 
Revelation, and mused upon it, until I too had a 
revelation of Jesus Christ in my Patmos ; saw the 
hairs of His head in the white flowers around me, 
and His eyes and feet in the flaming sunset that 
burned through the trees; and heard His voice in 
the cataract, like the sound of many waters, and 
felt, like " Aurora Leigh "— 

M 



162 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

" No lily-muffled hum of a summer bee, 
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars ; 
No pebble at your feet, but proves a sphere ; 
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim ; 
.... Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God ; 
But only he who sees takes off his shoes. " 

We started from Lillehammer early on Monday 
morning, through the valley of Gudbrandsdal, to 
Molde, a distance of nearly 200 miles, in a north- 
western direction. Fortunately, there was at the 
village a four-wheeled English carriage that had 
brought a party from Molde to the Miosen Lake, 
and now waited. to be brought back to its owner. 
We got the carriage free on the condition of pay- 
ing for the horses; and this arrangement materially 
lessened the expense of the journey, as well as 
added greatly to the comfort of the ladies of the 
party. We formed a somewhat imposing pro- 
cession as we passed through the village, and 
attracted a considerable share, of attention from 
the inhabitants. The vehicle which contained my 
friend and myself was what is called a stolkjerre, 
or double carriole. It was simply a square un- 
painted box, mounted on two wheels, without 
springs, and furnished with long shafts and a hard 
board laid across for a seat. It held us both 
tightly jammed ; free to turn our heads round, but 
not our bodies. The animal did not reflect much 
credit upon his species, and his accoutrements 
consisted of a most complicated and ragged 
system of grey cord and old leather. Altogether 



iv.] STAR T FROM LILLEHAMMER. 163 

it was a sorry turn-out, and it would require a 
considerable amount of moral courage to drive 
through London in it. But the villagers thought 
it rather grand than otherwise ; at least the boys 
did not run after us, and a few peasants actually 
doffed their caps. On we sped, seeing the rich 
hilly scenery in glimpses through the dust of our 
chariot wheels, with frequent and loud exclamations 
of " Oh ! " as the machine made a rougher jolt than 
usual. After about an hour and a half's drive, 
the carriage suddenly disappeared up a by-road. 
But we, absorbed in conversation, or in looking 
at the scenery, had not noticed this movement ; 
and thinking the carriage was ahead, though out 
of sight, drove confidently onwards at full speed. 
We were alarmed when we had gone a few hundred 
yards by hearing shouts in very energetic Nor- 
wegian — meaning probably " Stop thief ! " — and 
seeing half-a-dozen fellows bounding rapidly to- 
wards us through the brushwood above the road. 
One of them came forward, and, mounting on our 
vehicle, without a word of explanation seized hold 
of our reins, and drove us back prisoners up a 
side-path till we came to a cluster of wooden 
houses, where we halted. It seems that we had 
arrived at the first of the series of stations placed 
for the convenience of travellers at distances of 
about one Norwegian, or seven English miles, 
through the whole length of the Gudbrandsdal 
valley. The horse and machine we had brought 
with us from Lillehammer must here be changed 

M 2 



164 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

for a fresh horse and machine, and the boy who 
had accompanied the horses of the carriage had to 
take them back along with our equipage. Hence 
the alarm of the natives at our ignorant escapade. 
They thought that we were going to run off with 
our magnificent dog-cart, and sell the whole affair 
for a large sum at Molde. Of course, had they 
known that we were clergymen, they would not 
have insulted us and excited themselves by che- 
rishing such fears ; but there was nothing in our 
appearance to indicate our profession, and 1 sup- 
pose our faces, apart from our professional habili- 
ments, were not accepted as conclusive evidence of 
our honesty. 

I must here pause a little to give an idea of the 
mode of travelling in Norway, as this is a con- 
venient halting-place for the purpose. There are 
no stage coaches or diligences, for the people very* 
seldom travel, and then only on pressing business. 
The most common and characteristic vehicle of 
the country is called a carriole, shaped somewhat 
like an old-fashioned gig. It has no springs, but 
the shafts are very long and slender, and the 
wheels very large, so that its motion is far from 
being uncomfortable. It carries only one person, 
who has to drive with his feet nearly on a level 
with his nose, and a boy sitting behind on the 
portmanteau, amalgamating its contents, whose 
duty it is for an exceedingly small drikkepenge 
or gratuity to take back the horse and machine. 
Owing to this arrangement, a large party must go 



iv.] MODE OF TRA VELLING. 1 6 5 

in a long file of carnages like a funeral procession. 
The Norwegian horses are all small, cream- 
coloured, and remarkably docile and sure-footed, 
so that the most timid lady or the youngest child 
might safely drive them down the steepest gradients 
at full speed. The roads are made by Government : 
but each proprietor along the highway has to keep 
a certain portion of it in good working order, this 
portion being regulated according to the size and 
value of the property through which it passes. 
Painted wooden poles are placed at certain in- 
tervals along the road, inscribed with the name of 
the person who has to keep that part of it in order, 
and the number of yards or alen entrusted to his 
supervision. You can, therefore, form a pretty 
good idea of the wealth or poverty of any neigh- 
bourhood through which you travel by the greater 
or less distances of road thus distributed to the 
owners of land. At regular intervals of seven or 
eight English miles — as already observed — there 
are placed station-houses, where fresh horses 
and conveyances may be had, as well as lodging 
and entertainment for man and beast. These 
stations are either fast or slow stations. At 
the fast stations a number of horses and carrioles 
are kept regularly, ready for the convenience of 
travellers ; so that you ought not to be detained on 
your journey more than half an hour. A printed 
Government-book is kept at each of these stations, 
where the traveller writes down his name, the 
number of horses and carriages he requires, the 



166 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

place he has come from, and his destination, as 
well as any complaint he may have to make on 
the score of carelessness or detention. Such com- 
plaints are inquired into regularly by a Govern- 
ment inspector, and redressed as far as possible. 
Some of the remarks made in the column of 
complaints by Englishmen are very amusing. 
There was one English name which we found in 
the road-book of every station, coupled with some 
depreciating remark upon the scenery, the manners 
of the people, the nature and price of food, &c. &c. 
Nothing seemed to please his jaundiced eye and 
bilious stomach. Doing the journey post-haste, a 
detention of ten minutes in changing his horse and 
carriage at a new station was a most exaggerated 
offence. Desirous of making a profit of his tour, 
by spending less for travelling and keep together 
than his ordinary personal expenses would have 
cost at home, the charge of fivepence for a cup of 
coffee with solid accompaniments was considered 
most exorbitant. Here the people were exces- 
sively disobliging, and he was half-starved upon . 
strong-smelling gamle ost (old cheese), parchment- 
like fladbrod, of which nearly an acre is required 
to satisfy an ordinary appetite, and butter that 
looked like railway grease ; there the eggs were all 
rotten, there were no toothpicks, and the landlord 
was an extortionate Jew. With a slight variation 
upon the same lively tune he went from place to 
place. Fortunately, as English was not the lan- 
guage of the country, his Parthian shafts did not 



iv.] THE ROAD-BOOK. 167 

wound so severely as he intended. On the con- 
trary, it was amusing to see the conscious pride 
with which his ill-natured remarks were pointed 
out to us by more than one innkeeper, who 
imagined in the innocence of his heart that they 
could not be anything else than highly laudatory. 
We were glad to see that others of our country- 
men, following in the wake of Mr. Smith, had 
reversed his decision, and by their genial and 
hearty commendation of many things that were 
really excellent saved Englishmen from the impu- 
tation — which they too often justify abroad — of 
being a nation of grumblers. And while I am on 
this subject I may as well mention that very great 
harm is done to the peasantry by the thoughtless 
and indiscriminate lavishness on the one hand, and 
the excessive meanness and stinginess on the other, 
of our countrymen. The simple-hearted people 
cannot understand the inconsistency ; and Norway 
promises, if the same demoralizing system con- 
tinues to be pursued as at present, to be a second 
edition of Switzerland and the Rhine — a result 
which every one who knows and can appreciate 
the primitive straightforwardness, the genuine 
kindness, and honest independence of the Nor- 
wegians must deplore. 

At the slow stations the peasants of the neigh- 
bourhood are obliged by turns to supply the traveller 
with a horse and conveyance ; and, unless he sends 
a forbud or messenger before him to apprise the 
people of the exact time of his coming, he may have 



168 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

to wait several hours while the horse is being caught 
on the hills. Of course, should the traveller dis- 
appoint the station-keeper, either by delay or by 
failing to appear altogether, compensation must 
be given. We had no experience of these slow 
stations, for all the stations on the route we 
took were fast, so that we got on very swiftly 
and pleasantly. We met no English travellers 
all the time ; and our claims for horses and 
conveyances were never brought into competition 
with those of others. Some of the stations are 
poorly furnished, and very scantily supplied with 
provisions. You may riot in Goshen-like plenty 
to-day, and to-morrow be reduced to fladbrod and 
porridge. The traveller who passes in the morn- 
ing may fare sumptuously upon reindeer-venison, 
ptarmigan, and salmon ; while he who comes late 
in the day may have to content himself with polish- 
ing the bones and gathering up the fragments which 
his more fortunate predecessor has left. In some 
quarters the innkeepers shift so frequently that no 
dependence for two successive years can be placed 
upon Murray's certificate of character ; and we 
ourselves found the best entertainment, the great- 
est attention, and the most moderate charges, in 
places marked dangerous on account of the very 
opposite qualities. Many of the stations are filthy, 
and uninhabitable by any one more refined than 
a Laplander, swarming with F sharps and B flats. 
Indeed, the king of the fleas keeps his court — not 
at Tiberias, as travellers say — but at a Norwegian 



iv.] PRO VISIONS. 169 

station-house of the worst class. We, however, 
were either more fortunate than the great bulk of 
tourists, or our bodies were unusually pachyder- 
matous, for in no case were we tormented during 
the night watches, and generally the larder was 
well supplied with salmon, trout, beefsteaks, and 
eggs. The price of accommodation was ridiculously 
low — at least when compared with the bill of a 
Highland hotel. We had a magnificent supper, 
a capital bed, and a breakfast consisting of more 
than six dishes of a very solid character, at the first 
station we halted at, and the cost of the whole was 
only is. \o\d. for each. The price of accommoda- 
tion, as well as the charge for horses and con- 
veyances, is fixed by Government tariff, but the 
innkeepers invariably ask more from Englishmen, 
as they imagine that every native of these islands 
who travels in their country must be an embryo 
Rothschild. The usual rate of keep per day is a 
specie-dollar, — that is, 45*. 6d. of our money ; and 
the day's travelling expenses, along with keep, 
unless you go enormous distances at a stretch, 
should very rarely exceed an average of io*s\ The 
station-house keepers are a very respectable class 
of men, usually. They are often landed proprietors 
or justices of the peace, and only set themselves 
out for the entertainment and transport of travellers 
because they are obliged to do so by Government. 
Indeed, this innkeeping and posting business is a 
tax, and they pay it as we pay income-tax, with 
something like a grudge. They must, therefore, be 



1 70 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

treated with civility, and in some instances with 
very considerable respect. A Norwegian innkeeper, 
if ordered about like a Highland Sandie MTonald, 
would considerably astonish the traveller guilty of 
such boldness. 

But to return from this digression, necessary 
to explain our mode of travel, to the route itself. 
The road through the Gudbrandsdal is the regular 
postal route from Christiania to Throndhjem, and is 
therefore the most frequented and the best known 
part of the country. And yet the people are almost 
as unsophisticated as in the remotest districts. 
They crowded around us at the different stations, 
questioned us on all sorts of subjects, and carefully 
examined our dress and luggage. The ladies of 
our party were especial objects of curiosity to the 
women. Their ornaments and watches were tenderly 
touched, and greatly admired. Hands were lifted 
up in amazement at the strange wonders which 
glimpses of foreign boots and petticoats disclosed. 
An air cushion inflated for their benefit, and 
placed on the carriage seat, and then sat upon by 
an adventurous Dutch-built dame, elicited shouts of 
merriment. A few presents of pins, buttons, and 
Birmingham trinkets made them insist on shaking 
hands with us all round, a proof of friendship 
which, owing to the general prevalence of that 
touch of nature which makes Norway and Scot- 
land kin, the ladies were somewhat shy of accepting. 
The flaxen-haired cherubs had a revelation of a 
higher world than the common world of fiadbrod 



iv.] LICHENS OF LIS TAD. 171 

and porridge — a foretaste of Valhalla itself — in the 
unknown delights of English comfits and lollipops ; 
though I am not sure that it was really kind in us 
thus to awaken capacities and educate senses which, 
after a momentary fruition of bliss, must thence- 
forward be craving for the unattainable and "the 
unconditioned," 

After passing several stations, and accomplishing 
nearly fifty miles, we arrived late in the evening at 
Listad, near the picturesque and ancient church of 
Ringebo, where we stayed all night. About half a 
mile distant from the station-house, a wild gorge be- 
tween micaceous cliffs is formed by the Vaalen Elv, 
a large torrent that flows from the mountains on 
the left into the Lougen. Here, on the white vellum- 
like bark of the birch-trees, I gathered for the first 
time in Norway great quantities of that most lovely 
lichen, the Cetraria jtmiperina, in full fructification. 
The thallus is richly frilled, and of a most vivid 
yellow colour, contrasting beautifully with the 
broad shields of deep chocolate brown borne on 
the extremities of the lobes. Expanded by the 
recent rain, this lichen covered with its shaggy 
tufts all the trunks and branches of the trees, and 
imparted to the wood a very singular appearance. 
The mossy ground w r as also tesselated by large 
patches of the Cetraria nivalis, a snowy scolloped 
lichen growing in erect rigid tufts, which in this 
country is only found on the extreme summits of 
the Cairngorm mountains. The scenery of the 
Gudbrandsdal valley is praised in the most exagge- 



1 72 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

rated terms by Murray. He says that it affords 
a series of the finest landscapes in the world, and 
that it is doubtful whether any other river can show 
such a constant succession of beautiful views as 
the Lougen, which flows through it. The valley is 
indeed remarkable for its length, being 168 English 
miles long ; and the greater part of it is richly 
cultivated, with pine-clad hills rising on either side, 
but almost never picturesque in outline, or assuming 
an Alpine character. It is in fact a mere trough 
across one of the most massive and featureless 
mountain chains in Norway, bounded on both sides 
by comparatively uniform and level background. 
The great peaks retire behind the sky-line so as to 
be completely invisible ; there are no distant pros- 
pects, none of those charming lateral vistas caused 
by interlacing mountains, which reveal enough only 
to stimulate the imagination, and solicit it onward 
to grander scenes beyond. Even in the wildest 
and most romantic parts of the route, which are 
considered to be the entrance of the valley between 
Lillehammer and Moshuus, and the Pass of Rusten, 
between Laurgaard and Braendhaugen, the view is 
either exhausted altogether, or, as in passing up 
Loch Katrine to the west, the eye sees out through 
the romantic to the tame and flat beyond ; thus 
greatly impairing the impression which such a spot 
ought to produce. There are many landscapes in. 
the Highlands quite equal, if not superior, to those 
of the Gudbrandsdal valley. Owing to the peculiar 
conformation of the mountains^ the really splendid 



iv.] PASS OF RUS TEN. 173 

scenery of Norway is confined to the fjords of the 
west coast. 

We were greatly charmed with the river Lougen, 
which, always very broad and deep, expands here 
and there into chains of lakes — some of which, like 
the Lake of Losna, are navigable for large vessels. 
Indeed, for upwards of twenty miles, between 
Moshuus and^Listad, the journey used to be ac- 
complished by a steamer, which has now been 
Withdrawn. Some very fine cataracts occur in the 
course of the river ; and the roar of the immense 
body of water, broken up into snow-white masses 
contrasting beautifully with its uniformly rich green 
colour elsewhere, combined w r ith the picturesque- 
ness of its lofty banks adorned with hanging woods 
of pine and birch, produce a profound impression. 
At the Pass of Rusten especially the river is truly 
sublime, forcing its way through a narrow gateway 
in the mountains, which approach each other so 
closely that the road has been cut out of the living 
rock. It is a fearful place, of which the Pass of 
Killiecrankie can give one no idea ; and we drove 
shudderingly through it on the brink of precipices 
overhanging the deep foaming linns of the river. 
On the gneissic rocks through which the road was 
cut I observed an immense quantity of a very rare 
lichen called GyropJwra murina> which is included 
in the list of British lichens on the authority of 
specimens found on St. Vincent's Rock by a Mr. 
Dare, but which has not since been seen there, or 
indeed anywhere else in this country. It consists 



1 74 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

of a single roundish, crumpled, concave leaf, from 
an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, attached 
by a central disk to its growing-place. Its upper 
side is of a dark ash colour, passing into dark brown 
on the edges ; the under side being of a deep black, 
covered with minute shagreen-like roughness, inter- 
spersed with scattered fibres. The rocks in this 
locality were completely blackened with it ; and 
were thus harmonized with the profound gloom of 
the spot. Norway is the head-quarters of this 
tribe of lichens ; which are also common on our 
highest Highland mountains. On the bare arid 
rocks behind Christiansand occurs that most sin- 
gular member of the family, the Umbilicaria 
pustulata, like large ragged patches of dark brown 
parchment, covered with warts or pustular eleva- 
tions of the whole surface of the thallus. Below 
the fortress of Bergenhuus, that guards the harbour 
of Bergen, I noticed it growing in immense pro- 
fusion, giving a very shaggy look to the rocks. 
Common on the granite of Devonshire, and espe- 
cially on Dartmoor, in Scotland it is only found 
near the head of Loch Sligachan in Skye. On 
this route we saw no villages cosily grouped round 
a church, whose spire is conspicuous from afar. 
The churches are lonely buildings, few and far 
between, and the names crowded so thickly on 
Munch's admirable map indicate mere farmhouses 
with their steadings, called a gaard, equivalent to 
the Scottish toun. This isolation and dispersion 
of the houses over a wide area is a singular feature 



iv.] MASSACRE OF KRINGELEN. 175 

in Norwegian landscapes, and arises from the fact 
that almost every head of a family is the proprietor 
of the land on which he dwells. It gives, as Pro- 
fessor Forbes has remarked, a dreary interminable 
aspect to a journey, like that of a book unrelieved 
by subdivision into chapters, where we are at least 
invited to halt, though at liberty to proceed. 

Next day, before coming to the gorge of Rusten, 
we passed the cleft of Kringelen, where Colonel 
Sinclair, nephew of the Earl of Caithness, and his 
regiment of Scotch mercenaries, were massacred 
by an ambush of the peasants in 1612. Sinclair 
offered his services to Gustavus Adolphus, King of 
Sweden, who was then at war with Norway and 
Denmark. Landing from Scotland at Molde, he 
marched through Romsdal, intending to cross the 
uplands of Norway to the frontiers of Sweden, 
laying waste the country as he passed with fire and 
sword, and committing many acts of remorseless 
cruelty. Exasperated to the utmost fury, and un- 
able to contend with Sinclair in open fight, a band 
of 500 peasants adopted the same expedient as 
that recorded in the Tyrolese war of independence. 
Having collected an enormous quantity of rocks 
and stones on the brow of the hill immediately 
above the pathway leading through the narrow 
defile of Kringelen, they awaited the signal of a 
young man who had undertaken to guide Sinclair 
to this spot. No sooner were the devoted troops 
fairly underneath, and the signal given, than the 
fatal avalanche descended, burying them under the 



176 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. ' 

huge pile, so that only a few escaped. An affect- 
ing incident in connexion with this tragic event is 
commonly told to the traveller. A Norwegian 
lady in the neighbourhood, hearing that Mrs. Sin- 
clair was with her husband, sent her own lover, to 
whom she was to be married next day, to protect 
her from insult ; but Mrs. Sinclair, mistaking his 
intentions, drew a pistol from her bosom, and shot 
him dead on the spot. It is said that Mrs. Sinclair, 
a young and beautiful woman, was most devotedly 
attached to her husband, whom she followed across 
the sea disguised in male attire, and did not reveal 
herself until the arrival of the troops in Norway, 
when she could not be sent home. The dalesmen 
are never tired of reciting the praises of their 
valorous countrymen on this occasion. An inscrip- 
tion on a pillar by the roadside marks the scene of 
the massacre, and tells how " the peasants, among 
whom dwell honour, virtue, and all that earns 
praise, brake the Scotch to pieces like a potter's 
vessel." In the peasants' huts, matchlocks, broad- 
swords, powder-flasks, and other relics of the regi- 
ment are shown to tourists with much patriotic 
enthusiasm. There is a Norwegian ballad entitled 
" Herr Sinclair's Vise af Storm," sung by almost 
every native, of the end of which the following is a 
free translation : — 

" Strike home, ye valiant Northmen all ! 
Was the dalesmen's answering cry ; 
And fast the Scottish warriors fall, 
Andin their gore they lie. 



iv.] NOR WEGIAN BALLAD. 177 

" The raven flapped his jet black wing 
As he mangled the face of the slain ; 
And Scottish maids a dirge may sing 
For the lovers they'll ne'er see again, 

" No one of the fourteen hundred men 
E'er returned to his home to tell 
What peril awaits the foe in each glen, 
Where the stalwart Northmen dwell. 

" A pillar stands where our foemen lie, 
In deadly fight o'erthrown ; 
And foul fall the Northman whose heart beats not high 
When he looks on that old grey stone." 

The natives, as in this ballad, try to prove that 
the slaughter of the Scotch was not a treacherous 
massacre, but the result of a brave hand-to-hand 
encounter. And they will not believe that Scotch- 
men care very little for the fate of Sinclair and his 
mercenaries, of whom not one in a thousand has 
ever heard. We certainly did not blush for our 
country when we surveyed the wild scene. 

After passing through the dark gorge of Rusten- 
berg the road gradually ascends, until, at last, an 
elevation of 1,800 feet above the level of the sea 
has been attained. The scenery in consequence 
becomes bleaker and less wooded ; the spruce and 
pine gradually giving place to the birch, which here 
forms the principal tree — and, as usual, has a 
whiter and cleaner trunk and brighter foliage in 
proportion to the altitude. 1 The cultivation of 

1 It is interesting to notice that in all probability the name of the 
birch comes from the Sanscrit word bhoorja, applied to the laminated 
bark of an Indian birch {Betula Bhojfiatrd) used for writing and 

N 



1 78 HOLLOA YS ON HLGH LANDS. [chap. 

corn and potatoes is merged in that of grass and 
hay ; and the fields, which look dry and parched, 
are irrigated by Means of wooden troughs, in which 
water is led down, often for long distances, from 
the mountains. The air feels keener and more 
bracing ; patches of snow appear in the shady 
hollows far down the mountain sides on our left ; 
and the landscape assumes a wilder and more 
Alpine character. At Braendhaugen the road is 
very sandy ; this part of the valley, called Lessoe, 
which is purely pastoral, having evidently been 
once the bottom of an extensive glacier lake. 
Great banks of clay, scantily covered with grass, 
and presenting a peculiarly bleak grey appearance, 
rise up on the right-hand side of the river. This 
feature continues uninterruptedly to Dombaas, and 
the soil is so loose and sandy that the steep sides 
of the road are covered with withered patches of 
artificial turf fastened by wooden nails to prevent 
them slipping. It is very disagreeable travelling 
along. this part of the route in dry weather, owing 
to the clouds of dust raised by the vehicles. Fol- 
lowing immediately behind the carriage — for our 
spirited horse could not be kept back — we were 

ornamental purposes, like the paper-birch of North America. If 
this be so, it affords a striking proof of the theory that the ancestors 
of the present races of Europe migrated westwards from Central Asia. 
The bestowal of the name of an Indian birch upon a similar tree 
peculiar to the northern latitudes of Europe is as curious in its way 
as the bestowal of Saracen names, such as Mischebel, Al-al-'Ain, 
derived from the natural objects of the Arabian desert, upon the 
mountains and glaciers of Switzerland during the Moorish invasion. 



iv.] TOFTEMOEN. 179 

nearly suffocated. Our clothes were as white as a 
miller's, and the scenery appeared to us all the 
harsher on account of the scanty glimpses we 
obtained of it, and the irritation of the gritty 
particles in our eyes. At Braendhaugen the good 
old lady who keeps the station showed us the silver 
cup presented to her by the Queen of Norway and 
Sweden ; but my recollection of this stage hangs 
chiefly upon a pair of magnificent reindeer antlers 
nailed above the door, indicating that reindeer 
venison is occasionally found here. 

We were very tired after the long day's journey ; 
the heat and dust had been very oppressive ; and, 
for my own part, the jolting on a cushionless seat 
had made me so sore and tender that I could 
scarcely walk or sit. At eight o'clock at night we 
arrived at the mountain station of Toftemoen. 
Here we expected to stay all night ; but a party 
from Throndhjem had sent on a. for bud and secured 
all the available accommodation, and we had there- 
fore to go on to the next station, where we could 
get quarters. We were glad, however, to rest a 
little and get some refreshment at Toftemoen. 
This is a very ancient place, and famous in the 
sagas. It is one of the mountain stations which 
have the privilege of immunity from taxes, and 
appears to be one of the most comfortable resting- 
places in Norway. The proprietor is Mr. Tofte, 
well known throughout the whole country. He is 
the lineal descendant of Harold Haarfager, the 
first King of all Norway, and, in consequence of 

N 2 



180 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

Odin, the mythological Hercules of the North. 
The family are exceedingly proud of their birth, 
and take precedence of all the other proprietors 
at church and market. They have never been 
known for many generations to marry out of their 
own family—the result being that the present 
owner of the name is a simpleton, and his eldest 
son nearly a dwarf. This descendant of kings and 
representative of the oldest family in Europe un- 
harnessed our horses ; for .us like any common 
stable-boy. I treated him with considerable defer- 
ence — though whether he was more impressed by 
my manner or my attempts at Norwegian I cannot 
say. But, in return, he showed me the principal 
rooms in his house, which contain many curious 
old cabinets, and a broad slate table on which the 
present King of Norway and Sweden dined on his 
way to be crowned at Throndhjem. I saw the 
king's autograph, which he had scratched with a 
knife at one corner of the table. Tofte told me, 
with an air of considerable self-importance, of the 
dignified reception which he had given to the king; 
and related that, when the king wished to bring 
out his silver for dinner, he replied that he had as 
much silver in his house as would suffice to dine a 
much larger party than the king's. This was no 
idle boast, for I never saw in a private person's 
dwelling such a vast quantity of massive silver 
articles, evidently heirlooms, dating, some of them, 
many centuries back. Besides being possessed of 
the bluest of blue blood, Tofte is a wealthy landed 



iv.] TWILIGHT AT DOMBAAS. 181 

proprietor, a member of the Storthing or House of 
Commons, and a justice of the peace. This did 
not prevent him, however, from charging us a 
higher price than we had paid anywhere else for 
the entertainment we had at his house. He pre- 
sented me with his photograph taken at Christiania, 
dressed very stiffly and uncomfortably in Sunday 
clothes. The face is intensely Scotch, with a pecu- 
liar look of combined simplicity and shrewdness. 

The rest of our journey that night was not very 
pleasant, and it was past eleven o'clock when we 
arrived at the telegraphic station of Dombaas. All 
was quiet and still ; the people apparently having 
gone to bed, and sunk into the first deep sleep. 
Though so late at night, there was no darkness. 
You could read the smallest print with the utmost 
distinctness ; and but for the stillness of nature, 
and an indefinable feeling of mellowness and 
tenderness in the air, you might imagine it to be 
noon instead of midnight. The long bright Nor- 
wegian twilight is inexpressibly beautiful. The 
earth sleeps, but her heart waketh ; the golden 
tints of the departing day still linger on the dis- 
tant hills ; and a light, soft and sweet as the smile 
of an infant in its first slumber, fills all the sky, 
and you would think that the dawn had returned, 
only that the glory is in the west instead of in the 
east. Nothing reminds you of darkness and sleep 
but the rich liquid lustre of Venus hanging near 
the pale blue horizon, like a silver lamp let down 
out of heaven by an unseen hand, and flecking a 



182 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [char 

little shadowy pathway of light upon every ex- 
posed sheet of water. The long daylight is verj 
favourable' to the growth of vegetation, plants 
growing in the night as well as in the day in the 
short but ardent summer. . But the stimulus of 
perpetual solar light is peculiarly trying to the 
nervous system of those who are not accustomed 
to it. It prevents proper repose and banishes sleep. 
I never felt before how needful darkness is for 
the welfare of our bodies and minds. I longed for 
night; but the farther north we went, the farther 
we were fleeing from it, until at last, when we 
reached the most northern point of our tour, the 
sun set for only one hour and a half. Consequently, 
the heat of the day never cooled down, and accu- 
mulated until it became almost unendurable at last. 
Truly for a most wise and beneficent purpose did 
God make light and create darkness. " Light 
is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing to the eyes to 
behold the sun." But darkness is also sweet ; it is 
the nurse of nature's kind restorer, balmy sleep; 
and without the tender drawing round us of its 
curtains, the weary eyelid will not close, and the 
jaded nerves will not be soothed to refreshing rest. 
Not till the everlasting day break, and the shadows 
flee away, and the Lord Himself shall be our light 
and our God our glory, can we do without the 
cloud in the sunshine, the shade of sorrow in the 
bright light of joy, and the curtain of night for 
the deepening of the sleep which God gives His 
beloved. 



iv.] SHORTNESS OF BEDS. 183 

We had considerable difficulty in arousing the 
people from their slumbers, but at last we suc- 
ceeded in obtaining the services of a blithesome lass, 
who speedily extemporized beds for us, and made 
us as comfortable as possible on such short notice. 
The beds in Norway, I may mention, are all pro- 
crustean ; a kind of domestic guillotine invented 
for the purpose of amputating the superfluous 
length of Englishmen's legs. The Norwegians are 
a tall race, but I suppose they lie doubled up in 
bed like the letter V, the os coccygis touching the 
footboard, and the feet and head keeping loving 
company on the same pillow. Though not above 
the average height, my own unfortunate limbs were 
hanging exposed over the footboard ; the down 
quilt lay in all its rotundity in my arms like a 
nightmare of some monster baby ; and, while sleep- 
ing uneasily in this awkward posture, I dreamt that 
I had been metamorphosed somehow into a water- 
fall, and was flowing in white masses of foam, and 
with a considerable murmur, over very hard and 
slippery rocks. Next morning we felt the air a 
good deal colder, for we were now at an elevation 
of upwards of 2,000 feet above the level of the sea. 
The scenery of the place was bare treeless upland, 
very sparingly cultivated. The road to Throndhjem 
passed in a series of ups and downs over mono- 
tonous brown hills to our right ; while the high- 
way to Molde lay far down in an equally featureless 
valley to our left. A few hillocks here and there 
broke the level surface, covered with grey boulders, 



184 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

and clothed, instead of heather, which is somewhat 
rare in Norway, with crowberry and arbutus bushes. 
The lovely large blue-bells of the Menziesia peeped 
up everywhere among the familiar moorland vege- 
tation ; the Andromeda displayed its rich crimson 
blossoms on every dry knoll; while the clayey 
banks were brightened and beautified exceedingly 
with multitudes of the fairy Scottish primrose, 
whose sulphury leaves and tiny purple flowers are 
the ornament of the Caithness cliffs, but proceed 
no farther south in this country. There was an air 
of inexpressible loneliness about the place ; the 
stillness being broken only by the feeble bleat of a 
few sheep and goats — as diminutive, though full- 
grown, as lambs and kids — and the tinkle of the 
bells suspended round the necks of the no less 
Lilliputian cattle. A few pigs ran about, as thin 
as greyhounds ; and the Alpine vegetation, as well 
as the small size of animal life, testified to the 
ungenial character of the climate. The coolness 
of the air was very pleasant to us, roasted as we 
had been so long in the confined valley; but it 
must be a very trying thing to live at this elevated 
station in winter. Storms must blow over its 
shelterless fields with unexampled fury, and the 
snow drift in huge masses around it. The short 
black December day will be like the frown of Odin, 
and every wild night lit up by the magical radiance 
of the Aurora Borealis will be a Walpurgis-Nacht. 
Woe to the traveller who is then obliged to cross 
the Dovrefjeld ! 



iv.] PO VER TY-STRICKEN DIS TRICT. 185 

After leaving Dombaas, the scenery became 
exceedingly tame and uninteresting. Huge fea- 
tureless mountains of gneiss scantily clothed with 
brown moorish vegetation enclosed a dreary valley 
covered with straggling pines. The road at first 
passed over a desolate height among stunted firs 
and junipers — where immense cairns of stones 
blackened with tripe-de-roche lichens and Alpine 
mosses everywhere encumbered the ground. The 
pastures here were very bare and stony. Large 
tufts of the aconite or monkshood, peculiar to 
Alpine pastures, spread over them as thickly as the 
yellow rag-weed spreads over a fallow field in 
England. The sheep and cows were miserably 
thin and ill-fed. It was a poverty-stricken region, 
sadly contrasting with the rich Gudbrandsdal and 
the fertile Romsdal, between which it lay. Most 
of the houses were rude hovels of the most primi- 
tive construction. We noticed that a considerable 
number of the birches by the roadside had a broad 
ring of black round their white stems. The bark 
had been stripped off to cover the roofs of the 
houses ; shingles or turf being laid above. This 
birch bark has a very pleasant smell, and is besides 
very durable and quite impervious to moisture. 
The walls were made of squared trunks of trees, in- 
geniously dovetailed at the corners, with layers of 
sphagnum or bog moss inserted between each log, in 
order to keep out the cold. From these squalid 
abodes crowds of bareheaded, barefooted children 
in fluttering picturesque rags rushed out as we 



186 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

passed by, clamorous for alms, following us for 
long distances with their importunities. As the 
road in this locality was crossed at frequent in- 
tervals by gates, separating the numerous small 
farms from each other, this circumstance was taken 
advantage of in earning an honest penny. No 
sooner did our carrioles appear in sight than a boy 
would rush out from a house, with three pieces of 
rag floating behind him, and run with headlong 
speed along the road to open the nearest gate for 
us. Frequently, however, his hopes of a skilling or 
two were disappointed by the forethought of a 
longer-headed comrade, who had stationed himself 
at the gate in readiness to open it at once to the 
expected travellers. Iji such cases, we always re- 
warded the honest labour of the legs, and not the 
slothful cunning of the brain. The Lovgen at this 
part of the route passes through several lakes, the 
largest called Lesje Vand, and the smallest Lesje 
Vaerks Vand, which is 2,078 feet above the level 
of the sea. Here a rare and curious phenomenon 
in physical geography may be seen. The river 
Lovgen, whose course we had been following for 
upwards of 200 miles from Lillehammer, issues from 
the last-mentioned lake on the south-east and 
flows through the Miosen Lake to the Christiania 
Fjord ; while the Ravma issues from the other 
extremity and, flowing to the north-west through 
the valley of Romsdal, falls into the Molde Fjord. 
The whole of Southern Norway is thus surrounded 
by water, and converted into an island. 



iv.] ASCENT OF DO VREFJELD. 187 

Passing a miserable place called Holager, we 
arrived very early in the day at Holseth, a very 
clean and comfortable station. As we had resolved 
to remain here over the night, I embraced the 
opportunity of ascending one of the Dovrefjeld 
mountains, upwards of 4,000 feet high, immediately 
in front of the inn. The first part of the ascent was 
exceedingly arduous, leading through a tangled 
maze of junipers and dwarf birches (Bstula nana), 
creeping over loose fragments of rocks, and form- 
ing the underwood of a splendid forest of Scotch 
firs. I was delighted to find here the Pyrola uniflora, 
perfuming the air with the delicious fragrance of its 
large erect snow-white blossom. In boggy places 
grew a remarkably beautiful and stately species of 
" rattle " {Pedicidaris sceptrum Caroli)> called by 
the people KarVs skefter* It is peculiarly a Lap- 
land plant, and I was astonished to find it so far 
south. It is upwards of three feet high, the upper 
half being a spike of golden flowers. Rearing its 
lofty head above the grass, it looks like a royal 
sceptre, and is a great ornament to the wood. In 
the same moist localities I also found the stately 
Angelica archangelica, whose pungent aromatic 
stems, called myrstut, are highly prized by the 
Norwegians for their stomachic properties, and 
eagerly gathered wherever they can find it. Above 
the forest region, the mountain, though very much 
steeper, was less encumbered with shrubs, and 
therefore more easily climbed. The most abrupt 
declivities of the Norwegian hills are invariably on 



188 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LA NDS. [chap. 

the western side, the eastern side having a gradual 
inclination, while the summits consist of broad flat 
tablelands. Owing to this feature, the various zones 
of vegetation do not rise above one another as in 
the Alps and other mountain chains, but rather lie 
side by side ; so that you may travel several days 
on slightly rising ground through the region of 
the firs ; for several days more through the zone of 
the birch ; and for an equal length of time through 
the belt of the Alpine plants, before the snow- 
covered ridge is attained. The botany of Norway, 
therefore, over very wide spaces of mountainous 
territory, is somewhat monotonous, presenting none 
of those quick transitions which form the charm 
of Alpine exploration, and rendering botanizing a 
work of time and great fatigue. The season of my 
visit happened to be a late one — the previous winter 
having been unprecedentedly severe and protracted. 
The side of the hill was therefore covered with 
brown and matted grass, smoothly pressed by the 
snow that had very recently lain upon it ; and on 
the top there were great snow-wreaths, over which 
I walked with considerable difficulty. Few of the 
Alpine plants had yet begun to flower ; but in 
many places exposed to the sun I observed 
enormous patches in full bloom of the Alpine 
azalea. The foliage could not be seen for the mul- 
titude of rosy flowers. In this country we see it 
only in little tufts or fragments, which, however 
beautiful, give no idea of its exquisite loveliness 
when growing, as on the Norwegian mountains, in 



iv.] BE A UTY AND VARIETY OF PLANTS. 189 

solid masses of colour almost acres in extent. Its 
beauty was greatly enhanced by a setting of rein- 
deer-lichen, which whitened the ground everywhere 
with its snow-white coral-like tufts. It is with 
lichens as with Alpine plants; they increase in 
beauty and luxuriance the higher the altitude or 
latitude. Every one is familiar with the reindeer- 
moss of our own moorlands ; but the variety that 
grows on the mountains of Norway and the plains 
of Lapland is far lovelier, forming dense and much- 
divided tufts of snowy purity and exquisite shape. 
The rosy flowers of the azalea gleaming among 
these lichens looked like rubies or garnets set 
round with filigree work of frosted silver or carved 
ivory. 

Every dry stony knoll on the hill was covered 
with the compact cushion-like masses of the Green- 
land saxifrage, with dense tufts of the Alpine 
Lychnis (which in this country, as already men- 
tioned, is only found in one locality), or with carpets 
of mossy campion. Here and there, in marshy 
places, the rare Andromeda hypnoides formed bright 
green mossy tufts, from whence arose a profusion 
of slender hair-like crimson stalks, each bearing a 
single white bell-shaped blossom. Side by side 
with it grew the Pedicularis lapponica, whose soft 
yellow blossoms formed a pleasing contrast ; and 
the globular snow-white heads of the rare cotton- 
grass (Eriophorum Schevchzeri). Owing to the 
lateness of the season, the Anemone vernalis was 
still in flower on the sunny slopes, distinguished 



190 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

by its shaggy calyx clothed with brownish silky 
hairs, and its large white blossoms tinged with 
purple. But it was among the cryptogamic plants 
that I gathered the richest harvest of species. 
The droppings of horses immediately above the 
fir-forest were covered with no less than four species 
of Splachnum — that rarest and loveliest genus of 
mosses, viz. vS. rubrum, luteum, ampulaceum, and 
vasculosum. The first two are peculiar to Norway 
and the Arctic circle ; and the last two are found 
on the highest Scottish hills, forming dense cushions 
of large transparent foliage around springs. It is 
the peculiarity of this singular tribe of Alpine 
mosses that they almost all grow on organic sub- 
stances, such as skulls of sheep and deer ; one 
species having been found on the decayed hat of a 
traveller who had perished amid the snows of 
St. Bernard. On the summit of the hill, the ground 
was covered everywhere with dense erect tufts of 
Cornicularia ochroleuca> and the snowy scolloped 
Cetraria nivalis — lichens which in this country are 
found very sparingly distributed only on the highest 
summits of the Cairngorm range. The stems of the 
former are sulphur-coloured, about half a foot long, 
repeatedly branched, the ultimate branches tinged 
with a dark greenish hue, as if a faint foreshadow- 
ing of grass. Nothing could exceed its luxuriance 
in this spot, forming carpets into which the foot 
sank up to the ankle. The rocks were whitened 
with the large granulated branchy excrescences of 
the Stereocaulon paschale, a lichen common on our 



iv.] REINDEER. 191 

own hills ; which is remarkable as being the first 
trace of vegetation that appears on naked lava, and 
is therefore very general on Vesuvius, Etna, and 
Ischia. On this Norwegian plateau we have the 
exact counterparts of the tundra or plains that 
border the Polar sea, covered almost exclusively 
with dense masses of the same cryptogamic vegeta- 
tion, and forming the pastures of innumerable herds 
of reindeer. As if to increase the resemblance, I 
found many of the lichen tufts and patches of 
Ranunculus glacialis growing beside the snow, 
cropped as if reindeer had been feeding there very 
recently; and fortunately lifting up my eyes, I 
saw over the shoulder of the hill, about a quarter 
of a mile off, a herd of about sixty reindeer quietly 
grazing — one buck with large branching antlers 
standing as sentinel, and the light-coloured does 
and fawns collected in the centre of the group. It 
was a romantic sight, and would have delighted 
a sportsman's heart. In a little^ while they were 
apparently alarmed by something, and rushed 
away, till they were mere specks on the snow of 
the opposite hill. The reindeer are fast disappear- 
ing from the southern mountains of Norway, where 
they used to be exceedingly numerous, and retreat- 
ing to the northern parts ; and this is owing, not 
only to the disturbance of their haunts by an in- 
creasing number of sportsmen, but also to the 
gradual amelioration of the climate. It is rare 
now to see herds of any size farther south than the 
sixty-third degree. 



192 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

The Dovrefjeld Mountains are to Norway what 
the Breadalbane Mountains are to Britain — the 
finest botanical field in the country. They have 
been successfully investigated by the late Professor 
Blytt and his son, the present accomplished curator 
of the Christiania botanical gardens, w T ith whom I 
had a pleasant meeting on the Sogne Fjord ; but a 
very large portion remains still to be explored. 
The greatest variety of rare plants is found about 
Fogstuen, Jerkin, and Kongsvold. A great number 
of species peculiar to the Polar circle, and unknown 
elsewhere in Norway, may be gathered in these 
places. A large succulent species of moonwort 
(Botrychium virginicum) occurs on the Dovrefjeld, 
which has a very remarkable geographical range. 
In Europe it is found only in Norway ; but it 
abounds in many parts of the Southern United 
States, grows on the Andes of Mexico and on the 
Raklang Pass in the Himalayas, and is frequent 
on the mountains of Australia and New Zealand, 
where it is boiled and eaten by the natives. Like 
the Erigeron alpinns and Phleum alpinum — a species 
of Alpine grass both growing on the Dovrefjeld, 
on the British mountains, at a great height on the 
Himalayas, and in the Straits of Magellan and 
the Falkland Islands — the distribution of this plant 
over such widely-separated areas is a very puzzling 
problem. 

I do not know whether I was the first who 
ascended this nameless mountain of the Dovrefjeld, 
but I gathered a cairn of loose stones which I 



iv.] VIEW FROM SUMMIT OF HILL. 193 

piled above one another on the highest point, and 
writing my name, address, and date of visit on a 
card, enclosed it in the centre for the benefit of 
future explorers. The view from that elevated spot 
was truly grand: behind me Snsehattan — long 
considered the highest hill in Norway — towered 
up 7,700 feet above a bleak desert plateau ; its 
upper half covered with snow, and, forming an am- 
phitheatre, broken down on one side by great black 
precipices enclosing true glaciers. Over against 
me stretched the peaks, pinnacles, and horns of 
the Langfjeld ; while a lofty snow-cone rose stern 
and solitary on the distant horizon, which I iden- 
tified as Galdhoppigen, now ascertained to be the 
highest Norwegian mountain, being nearly 1,000 
feet higher than Snsehattan. Westward I saw 
the fantastic summits of Romsdal, with the sphinx- 
like form of Storhattan, reposing amid the splen- 
dour of golden clouds, and facing the setting sun 
as if looking over the verge of the earth and 
peering into another and a brighter world. It was 
altogether a view peculiar to Norway, with an air 
of utter desolation and gloomy grandeur. Such 
vast masses of inorganic matter filled the horizon, 
that the presence of a little plant beside my 
feet was cheering — reminding me of the organic 
chain of sympathy that bound us together. No 
creature appeared in sight, either on the earth or 
in the sky. No tinkling of cow-bells or shrill goat- 
song — sounds elsewhere common — broke the op- 
pressive lifelessness and loneliness of the place. For 

O 



194 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

upwards of an hour I sat on my cairn drinking in 
the sublime influences of the scene; but the waning 
light warned me that the day was far spent. In 
descending I had to traverse a long snow-field as 
smooth and hard as ice, and lying at a pretty steep 
angle on the hill-side. I had no sooner stepped upon 
it than my feet went from under me, and I glis- 
saded with great rapidity down the slope, striking 
very hard against some birch stumps that protruded 
out of the snow at the bottom. I was soaked to 
the skin, and a good deal stunned ; but I forgot 
every bodily discomfort in astonishment at the 
strange sight which my fall had disclosed. I had 
noticed before stepping on the snow that the sur- 
face was of a curious salmon colour in some places, 
and covered with fine particles like brick-dust ; and 
now I found that wherever my body had pressed 
the snow together there was a long crimson streak, 
as if a creature's blood had been shed there. This 
was the famous red snow, which is so frequently 
found in the Arctic regions and on the Alps, pro- 
duced by an immense multitude of microscopic 
plants, consisting only of gelatinous cells. Captain 
Ross on one occasion noticed a snowy ridge ex- 
tending eight miles in length, tinged with this 
singular hue to a depth of several feet. Vast 
masses of it spread over the Apennines in 1818; 
and it is recorded that in the beginning of this 
century the vicinity of Belluno and Feltri was 
covered with rose-coloured snow to the depth of 
twenty centimetres. The snow is not its natural 



iv.] RED SNOW, 195 

situation, for it is found, like the nostoc and other 
gelatinous algae, on moist rocks in this country; but 
its great tenacity of life enables it not only to pre- 
serve its vitality when its germs fall on this ungenial 
surface, but to grow and propagate itself with the 
astonishing rapidity of its family, favoured by the 
heat of the sun and the melting of the snow. Its 
colour in this country, when growing on rocks, is 
green ; but it has been observed that there is a 
curious coincidence between a white ground and a 
red flower ; so that its brilliant carmine hue on the 
snow may be produced by the excess of light 
reflected by its chilly habitat. Had I not been 
familiar with this curious phenomenon — having 
seen it on the Alps — I should have been alarmed, 
naturally supposing that the crimson streaks had 
been shed from my own veins by the accident. 

At the next station beyond Holseth, called 
Stueflaaten, the valley of Romsdal fairly begins. 
From this point the view of grey Alpine peaks, 
seamed with watercourses, closing in and shutting 
up the vista to the westward, is very striking, and 
stimulates the imagination by the thought of 
grander scenes beyond. The road, recently recon- 
structed in the most admirable way, winds along 
by the side of the Rauma. No amount of praise 
bestowed upon this river can be exaggerated. It 
is the finest stream in Norway, combining features 
which are not united in any other river. Its course, 
though short, is exceedingly varied and turbulent. 
For twenty miles it has worn its way by the sheer 

O 2 



196 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

force of its waters through schistose rocks, and 
formed deep circular basins, narrow channels, and 
projecting ledges, over and through which it 
thunders and foams in the wildest manner. The 
contrasts of colour exhibited by the pale malachite 
green of its linns, shading into black in the deeper 
parts, and the snowy whiteness of its cataracts, 
were very beautiful, and afforded a perpetual feast 
of delight. Wishing to enjoy the scenery in a 
calmer and more leisurely way, we walked between 
Stueflaaten and Ormen, a distance of nine miles. 
Although the heat was great and rendered exertion 
of any kind very fatiguing, I never enjoyed any 
walk so much ; my only regret being that it was so 
short. Every turn of the road opened up a new 
and grander scene than before — loftier precipices 
and wilder reaches of the river. Among the in- 
numerable waterfalls of the Rauma — many of 
which, deeply hidden between perpendicular walls 
of rock, can only be seen by lying down on the 
verge of the precipices and gazing over — the 
finest is the Sondre Slettefoss, a short distance 
from the road. An enormous body of water is 
here hurled about forty feet into a long deep cave 
worn in the rocks, from whence it issues through 
a rugged gorge fringed with hanging birches. 
The noise was deafening ; and the mists rising up 
from the abyss clung in wreaths to the black sides 
of the rocks and tossed the dripping birches in 
their swirling eddies. It required a considerable 
amount of courage to stand on the brink and look 



iv.] ORMEN. 197 

over into this wild torment of waters. In a little 
sunny birch-wood beside this waterfall grew in 
greater profusion than elsewhere a little flower, 
called Smilacina bifolia, peculiar to Norway. It 
is closely allied to the lily of the valley, having, 
like it, two broad leaves ; but its cream-coloured 
blossom is smaller, exceedingly delicate, and foam- 
like. It completely hid the grass with its snowy 
sheen, and looked as though the foam of the 
w r aterfall borne by the wind to the spot had blos- 
somed into flowers. A beautiful species of Smi- 
lacina, which grows from two to five feet high, and 
has plaited leaves and crowded panicles of white 
bell-shaped flowers, is found on the Himalayas. 
Its young flower-heads, sheathed in tender green 
leaves, are used as a pot-herb by the natives, under 
the name of chokli bi. 

Ormen, the next station, is most picturesquely 
situated on a rock overhanging the river, which 
here flows through a very narrow part of the defile. 
In front is a dense pine-wood ; and on the opposite 
side of the river a large stream flows obliquely 
down the face of the hill in one long line of white, 
dividing at last into two parts, and forming a series 
of waterfalls into the Rauma. A wooden bridge 
crosses at this point, and gives access to several 
comfortable saeters and rich green pastures. Stor- 
hattan rises above the brow of the hill, but is not 
visible from the station-house, as an extensive 
table-land of snow intervenes. This isolated 
mountain, whose sphinx-like form, wherever it is 



198 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

seen, is one of the most striking features in the 
landscapes of Romsdal, is of great height, and 
commands from Jts sharp semicircular summit a 
vast range of snowy peaks. The ascent, which 
takes three hours, is very laborious and in some 
places highly dangerous. The whole of this region 
presents peculiar attractions to the sportsman, 
being famous for its game of all kinds. On the 
mountains reindeer are not unfrequently met ; the 
copses which run up the sides of the valley are the 
coverts of the hjerpe, or hazel-hen, and the skov- 
ryper y or wood-grouse ; while, in the pine-woods, 
the capercailzie (called by the natives s tor-fugle or 
big bird) is sometimes seen, or at least heard, as 
it makes a startling noise when it is disturbed, in 
crashing through the branches. The Norwegian 
squirrel, which differs from our species, is very 
numerous hereabouts. Like the Alpine hare and 
ptarmigan, it changes its colour in winter from 
brown to grey. The winter skin is greatly ad- 
mired, forming the petit gris of commerce, and 
is much worn by cardinals in Italy. Tracks of 
bears have occasionally been found at the foot of 
Storhattan. The day before we passed, broken 
branches, fresh droppings, and footprints were seen 
in the copse opposite the station-house, indicating 
that Bruin had been very recently there. The 
only place in Norway where one now has a chance 
of coming in contact with a bear or an elk is in 
Saeterdal. 

At Fladmark the river flows smoothly between 



iv.] ROMSDALHORN. 199 

richly wooded banks of alders and aspens, and here 
and there a green meadow sprinkled with golden 
globe flowers and white Alpine bistort. The water is 
of the loveliest green colour, and so clear and trans- 
parent that the mica stones could be seen glittering 
in the sunlight at the bottom. It was a perpetual 
baptism of refreshment ; while its pleasant murmur 
marched along with us like the refrain of a song. 
From this point for fourteen miles we had an end- 
less succession of the most magnificent views of 
precipices, peaks, and waterfalls. The only place 
that can be compared to this part of Romsdal is 
Loch Corruisg in Skye ; but it is a very small and 
insignificant imitation of the tremendous gorge 
through which we passed. On one side is a series 
of vertical walls of rock between two and three 
thousand feet high, with innumerable waterfalls 
streaming down their sides or leaping sheer down 
from the top to the bottom, and filling all the air 
with the confused echoes of their shoutings. At 
the extremity of this chain of precipices towers up 
the famous Romsdalhorn, an inaccessible obelisk 
of granite upwards of 4,000 feet high, seeming 
quite close wherever one goes, and, like the Matter- 
horn, changing its shape according to the point of 
view. On the other side of the gorge are lofty 
mountains weathered into the most fantastic shapes. 
One curious point, bearing some resemblance to a 
monk, is called Martin Luther; and the whole 
range receives the name of the Troldtinderne or 
Goblin Peaks. The breadth of the gorge from 



200 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

cliff to cliff may be about two miles, but it does 
not look a quarter of a mile, owing to the height 
of the precipices on either side. The Rauma, here 
a deep, wide river, flows through it, reflecting on 
its placid bosom the grandeur around. Every- 
where the ground is strewn with huge boulders and 
fragments of rocks ; while green verdure and birch- 
woods struggle up the talus heaps which have 
crumbled from the weathered peaks above. All 
the woods by the roadside were covered as thick 
as they could grow with wild lilies of the valley, 
bearing a profusion of snowy blossoms, larger and 
more fragrant even than the garden ones. In the 
potato and corn fields, growing in great abundance 
as a common weed, was the beautiful cornel (Cornus 
suecicd) with its white corolla and curious eye of 
black velvet — an Alpine plant which is only found 
in a few places on our highest Highland hills. The 
sun was setting when we arrived at the inn of Aak, 
and a rich crimson glow shone on the snowy 
pinnacles around, making them look like pyramids 
of solid fire ; while a sky of inexpressible softness 
and beauty linked the glorified summits together, 
and gave the whole scene an ethereal look like 
fairy land. It was a place where the most callous- 
hearted might worship as in a temple ; and when 
from every birch and lily of the valley rose up on the 
still evening air a perfume most deliciously subtle 
and sweet, my senses were fairly intoxicated, and 
I will not now repeat the extravagant analogies 
that ran through my brain. 



iv.] AAK. 201 

Aak is the most comfortable and delightful 
place of residence in all Norway. The inn, which is 
a plain wooden building by the roadside, is kept by 
Andreas Landmark, a lensmand, or justice of the 
peace, who also owns a large portion of the valley, 
and the fishing of the Rauma for a mile or two. 
His wife is said to be a sister of the Bishop of Bergen, 
and his daughters can speak English very correctly 
and fluently, especially Laura, who is a most ad- 
mirable kousekeeper, and attends personally to the 
wants of the guests. Nowhere does the tourist feel 
so much at home or fare so well as here ; the 
visitors' book being full of the most glowing praises 
of the landlord and his daughters. Elsewhere 
semi-starved on fladbrod and that horrible cheese 
made of sugar and curd which looks like a Bath- 
brick, or a lump of diachylon, or half-poisoned by 
the cooking heresies of ignorant peasants, he here 
revels in all the luxuries of the country properly 
prepared and served. The table is lavishly supplied 
with fish and game of various kinds, and wild fruits 
in the appropriate seasons. As for salmon, for 
which the Rauma is celebrated, thanks to the suc- 
cessful fishing of two Englishmen who lived at the 
inn, we got it so often, and in so many forms, 
that we were in the end perfectly sick of it. We 
understood, in a way that we never did before, the 
stipulation of Scotch servants in former times, when 
about to engage with a new master, that they were 
not to get salmon oftener than three times a week. 
There is certainly something in the air of Norway 



202 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

that acts in an extraordinary manner as a stimulant 
to appetite, for we ourselves found that two hours 
after a breakfast of the most solid and varied 
character, which if partaken of in this country 
would infallibly lead to a bilious attack, and a 
course of water-gruel for a fortnight, we were quite 
ready for another meal as substantial. My bed- 
room, in a separate wing of the house, was a small 
pigeon-hole of the most primitive kind, approached 
by a staircase so steep that I had to perform a series 
of severe gymnastic feats in getting up, and in 
going down to go backwards, cruelly scarifying my 
shins. How the chambermaid managed to bring up 
a tub full of water for ablutionary purposes, without 
breaking her neck or drowning herself, was a puzzle 
which I could not solve. But once in, the room 
was scrupulously neat and clean, and fragrant with 
freshly-gathered bouquets of lilies of the valley. 
The garden close by was a delightful retreat in the 
evening. It was well stocked with culinary vege- 
tables, which were merely in a germinating condi- 
tion, and the cherry and apple trees were still loaded 
with blossoms, although it was the beginning of 
July. The ardent sunshine working night and day, 
however, would ripen the garden crop in this high 
latitude quite as soon as in our country. 

Saturday after our arrival was an exceedingly 
sultry day ; the thermometer ninety degrees in the 
shade, and not a breath of wind moving even on 
the bank of the river. The mosquitoes were very 
troublesome, adhering so pertinaciously to our 



iv.] MOSQUITOES. 203 

clothes that we could not drive them off: one 
member of our party suffered severely from their 
bites. This fondness of the mosquito for blood is 
an inexplicable fact in its history. It is not its 
natural food, for the insect abounds in places which 
no warm-blooded animal frequents, and where man 
is never or rarely seen, and when permitted to suck 
its fill it turns on its back and remains thus till it 
dies. This curious point deserves the study of 
the physiologist. The Norwegian name for this 
suicidal phlebotomizer is mouga or mouge, from 
whence is derived the Scotch word midge, the 
pest of our summer woods and river-sides. Lying 
gasping, perspiring, and tormented with heat and 
mosquitoes, under the shade of the trees, I looked 
up with longing eyes to the pure white snow-fields 
of the Goblin Peaks, so suggestive of coolness and 
vigour. In vain, however, for none of them could 
be climbed, and the exertion on such a day would 
be fearful. Across the river, right in front of the 
inn, is a hill of moderate height, clothed on the 
lower part with dense scrub, which promised to be 
easily accessible. It is called " Mid-dag Hill," be- 
cause the sun appears above its summit at noon, 
and it is thus a kind of public clock to the neigh- 
bourhood. A pathway leads up to the top, and 
ladies occasionally ascend. This circumstance 
caused my friend and myself to undervalue the 
difficulties of the ascent, and refuse the services of a 
guide. We were not long, however, in finding that 
we had been too rash and confident in going alone, 



204 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

for we lost the track, which was frequently concealed 
under huge wreaths of snow, the relics of the past 
winter, lingering there on account of the lateness of 
the season, and were surrounded by precipices in 
every direction. We managed with great difficulty to 
reach the highest point to which we could venture 
with safety, which was not more than thirty feet 
below the real summit. Here the ground, com- 
posed of comminuted schist and moistened by the 
melting of the snow, was carpeted with dense tufts 
of the beautiful Diapensia lapponica, growing side 
by side with cushions equally dense of the moss 
campion. The former plant is peculiar to the Alps 
of Norway and the Arctic circle, and is distinguished 
by its large white strawberry-like blossom, which is 
produced so abundantly as almost to hide the 
foliage. The rosy flowers of the campion were 
equally abundant, so that together they made a 
lovely garden in the wilderness. The lily of the 
valley, though much dwarfed, ascended here to 
within a hundred feet of the top, wherever there was 
soil in the crevices of the rocks. On the pure white 
quartz veins which protruded from the schist grew 
in immense quantity a black tufted lichen, of 
extremely rigid habit, called Cornicularia tristis, 
which is one of the most Arctic, Antarctic, and 
Alpine lichens in the world, being found at the 
extreme limit of vegetation on the Alps, Himalayas, 
and Andes, and in north and south latitudes. 
Over the shoulder of the hill we caught a glimpse 
of the Romsdalhorn, lifting its giant finger into 



iv.] MID-DAG HILL. 205 

heaven, as if upbraiding us for our foolhardiness in 
venturing so near it. It had a peculiar, weird, 
awful look, like one of the gods of Scandinavian 
mythology changed into stone, especially when a 
small wisp of mist — mysteriously formed, for there 
was not a cloud in the sky — rose up and partially 
veiled its summit. The view was wonderful, not 
only in its extent, but also in the peculiarity of its 
character. Green fjelds sloping down into the 
green Romsdal Fjord, and ■ hiding in their recesses 
greener lakes, contrasted in a curious way with snowy 
mountains, standing out boldly against a deep 
blue sky. As we descended it was interesting to 
watch the gradual closing of the boundary line, and 
the disappearance first of the snowy peaks, and 
then of the upland lakes, until at last the precipices 
of Aak confined our horizon. This descent gave us 
a considerable amount of anxiety, for, unlike the 
Scottish mountains, which slope down gradually 
to the valley and reveal their whole outline from 
the top to the bottom, this hill was exceedingly 
precipitous, and we could only see at a time about 
a dozen yards of steep rock below us, terminating 
abruptly in blank space, terribly suggestive to the 
imagination. We capped with stones the more 
prominent rocks by the side of the path as we 
ascended ; but these beacons were of no more use 
to us in our descent than the crumbs of bread 
which the boy in the fairy tale dropped on his 
track, for we got confused with the sameness and 
gigantic scale of the features of the hill. Our thank- 



206 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

fulness and relief, therefore, in reaching the base in 
safety may be more easily imagined than described. 
Our gratitude was still further deepened, when, sur- 
veying the hill during our evening walk, we noticed 
how frequently we had come unconsciously to the 
verge of precipices over which another step forward 
would have hurled us, to be dashed in pieces more 
than a thousand feet below. 

Sunday was a rainy day, and all the hills were 
covered to their bases with thick curtains of mist. 
It was a wild Sinai-like scene. When portions 
of the mist occasionally thinned away, revealing 
glimpses of the snow-flecked rocks, so pure and far 
up, it seemed like vistas opened in heaven — like the 
vision of Jacob's ladder, with angels ascending and 
descending. The grand spire of this natural temple, 
the Romsdalhorn, was completely blotted out of 
the landscape ; but we heard now and then the 
muffled roar of its avalanches, its awful bell tolling 
in the darkness. On Monday we left the Romsdal 
valley with great regret, and embarking on board 
a steamer calling at Veblungsnseset, we sailed 
down the fjord amid pine-clad rocks of the most 
fantastic forms, and islands white with eider ducks, 
terns, auks, and puffins. At Molde we landed for 
two hours. From an eminence behind the town, 
which is of considerable size, and carries on a large 
trade in fish and timber, we beheld the wonder- 
fully grand and extensive view for which this place 
is celebrated, rank rising behind rank of lofty snow- 
peaks, until the last mingled with the white clouds 



I v.] VIE W FROM MOLDE. 207 

in the distance. Conspicuous in the front row was 
the Romsdalhorn, the Matterhorn of Norway ; be- 
yond was Snsehattan with its silver helmet ; and to 
the south-east the huge fantastic horn of Per- 
puatind or Skjorten, curved round and covered all 
over with snow, even on the under curve. In this 
direction, farther away, were the shattered Aiguilles 
of the Langfjeld, and the lofty but unknown moun- 
tains at the head of the Stor Fjord. No more 
bewildering array of Alpine peaks crowds upon the 
eye from the Righi Kulm. It far surpasses, in my 
estimation, the famous view of the giants of the 
Oberland from the platform of the Federal Hall 
at Berne. The Swiss picture lacks the sea, with- 
out which no mountain scenery, however grand, can 
be complete. But the waters of the Molde Fjord, 
spreading out into a wide island-studded basin, 
gave an idealistic charm to the vast amphitheatre 
of mountains rising beyond ; and the lights and 
shades of a sunny day imparted to sea and moun- 
tain a witchery of hue and form which made them 
perfect. We gazed upon the glorious sight with 
sense and soul stretched to the utmost tension of 
admiration. The proverb runs, " See the Bay of 
Naples and die;" but I would say, "See the view 
from Molde, and have a joy for ever !" 

It was eight o'clock at night when we reached 
Aalesund, a pretty large town, carrying on a con- 
siderable trade in codfish with Spain and Italy. It is 
situated amid a perfect fastness of rocks and water, 
quite inaccessible except to a Norwegian sailor ; 



208 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

while the views from it of the distant serrated snow- 
flecked peaks of the Langfjeld are very magnificent. 
The whole region around is full of the most inter- 
esting historical associations. It was the country 
of the Sea Kings ; and from this wild robber's nest 
they swept down upon the defenceless coasts of 
England, Scotland, and France. Here are the 
ruins of the borg or castle of the famous Ganger 
Rolf, the founder of the Duchy of Normandy, 
and the ancestor of William the Conqueror. We 
landed in a boat at the quay, and went succes- 
sively to the two inns in search of beds, but they 
were both full, owing to a court of justice then 
sitting. We had therefore to return and sleep on 
board the steamer. Next day we sailed, amid the 
same kind of scenery, down the Stor Fjord, calling 
at the different hamlets on the shores, and at the 
head of the intricate creeks ; and arrived at six 
o'clock in the evening at the extremity of a long 
arm of the fjord, where there was a little village 
called Aahjem, unknown to " Murray." It was a 
most solitary place — " the world forgetting, by the 
world forgot." The daughter of the innkeeper had 
never seen an English lady before. The son, how- 
ever, a fine smart young man, who spoke a little 
English, had been to the Paris Exhibition ; and we 
found in the sitting-room the usual souvenirs of 
French travel. He was looked upon as a great 
man by the primitive inhabitants ; and certainly a 
more startling contrast could not be found than 
between the metropolis of fashion and this lonely, 



IV.] SAETER-LIFE. 209 

far-off Norwegian village. When we landed, the 
sky from end to end was of molten gold without a 
single cloud, while the sun trembled in a furnace of 
dazzling brilliancy above the waters of the fjord, 
which seemed like a brazen sea. The surrounding 
mountains were purple with light, and looked as 
ethereal as clouds ; while the universal stillness 
seemed like the awe and reverence of nature at 
the great sight. Among moist friable cliffs at a 
considerable height above the village, decked with 
starry saxifrages and Alpine alchemilla, I gathered 
a great many rare cryptogamic plants ; and a birch- 
wood copse at the foot is especially memorable 
as the spot where I first noticed in Norway the 
Linncea borealis, afterwards so common and familiar. 
On the following morning we took carrioles and 
drove up a very steep Alpine road, over a moun- 
tain plateau, studded with numerous tarns. On the 
top of the mountain, beside a lake, we saw a sdeter 
or mountain farm, to which the cattle are sent to 
pasture in spring and summer, under the care of 
the daughters and female servants of the farmer. 
Upon these saeters there are houses of very rude 
construction, and very poorly furnished, in which 
the tenants live and carry on all their dairy- work. 
This saeter-life, alone on the mountains for four 
months in the year, must be very dreary and mo- 
notonous. The servants say that they could not 
endure it, were it not that their lovers come up to 
see them on the Saturday evenings, when they 
put on their best dresses and faces, and have a 

P 



210 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LA NDS. [chap. 

feast of dairy produce and a merry dance. This 
custom, however, has been formally prohibited by 
Government, on account of the injury done on 
such occasions to the game, for the lovers try to 
kill two birds with one stone. The saeter which 
we passed was certainly a very lonely place ; the 
pasturage was scanty ; and the house a mere hovel 
of rough unmortared stones, with a hole in the turf 
roof for a chimney, and another in the wall for a 
window. The cattle were very small, and wandered 
about with bells round their necks, making a sweet 
musical tinkle that increased the loneliness and 
sadness of the place. It is not wonderful that in 
such a region should have arisen the strange super- 
stition of the Huldre, a mountain spirit who goes 
forth in the morning with her spectral herd of voice- 
less and milkless cows, following at a distance the 
cattle from the tro y or fold, when they are driven 
out to the pastures, and returning with them in the 
evening. The saeter-girls collect during the summer 
immense quantities of the reindeer-moss from the 
fjelds ; and when the autumn storms sweep the 
snow down the sides of the mountains, and cover 
up with its smooth uniform surface the steep and 
almost impassable roads, the farmer brings the 
moss, frozen into hard compact masses, on sledges 
down into the valley, where it forms an essential part 
of the winter fodder of the cattle in this district. 

After a fatiguing drive of aboyt three hours, 
exposed to the scorching sunshine on bare treeless 
moorland, we came down to a station hidden in a 



iv.] BRYGGEN. 211 

nook of the Nord fjord, called Bryggen. The 
whole of this region is beyond the ordinary 
tourist's ground, and is quite fresh and unexplored. 
Mr. Murray's guide has not penetrated into the 
scenery of the Nord fjord, some parts of which are 
truly grand and Alpine in character. Here we 
were admitted for the first and only time into the 
bosom of a Norwegian family. On all other occa- 
sions, travelling on frequented ground, we were 
treated as tourists, and got our meals in our own 
rooms. But here we were treated as guests and 
dined with the members of the household. If it 
was " pot-luck " we got, the proprietor must have 
been uncommonly well off to keep such a table, 
loaded with fish, flesh, and fowl. Our hostess did 
not sit with her husband and children. She brought 
in the dishes, and attended to the comfort of the 
guests. This created an unpleasant feeling in our 
minds ; but apologies or entreaties to sit down with 
us would have been misplaced, as in Norway the 
lady of the house considers it her especial duty to 
superintend the operations of her servants, and 
make her guests perfectly comfortable. 

In this part of the Nord fjord there were little 
creeks, where the shore sloped gradually down into 
the profounder depths. In this shallow water 
grew large quantities of wrack, dulse, tangle, and 
other common sea-weeds. Owing to the great 
depth of the water, into which the rocky shores 
descend abruptly, these sea-weeds are rare in 
Norway. Only in one other place did I notice 

P 2 



212 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

anything like the sight which our weedy sea-shores 
present when the tide has ebbed. Usually there is 
but the slightest fringe of sea-vegetation marking 
the water-line along the rocky shore ; and in many 
of the fjords even this is absent. At the head of 
the Sogne fjord, upwards of 120 miles from the 
open sea, there are no sea-weeds lining the preci- 
pitous shores. The water at the surface is almost 
fresh ; indeed, I saw a sailor putting down a bucket 
into this stratum and drinking the contents. The 
influence of the tide is little felt ; and the river 
that empties itself into it overlies the heavier salt 
water, and prevents by its intense coldness and 
freshness the growth even of the green ulvas and 
enteromorphas which in this country mark the 
junction between fresh and salt w r ater. Owing to 
the absence of vegetation, fish and other fauna of 
the sea are rare ; so that the inhabitants have not 
this source of supply to eke out the scanty produce 
of their miserable corn and potato fields. In the 
creeks of the Nord fjord, however, there was an un- 
usual abundance of shell-fish and other forms of 
sea-life lurking among the dark tufts of fuci and 
tangle. I gathered a few specimens of Natica 
Groenlandica, an Arctic and circumpolar mollusc, 
which becomes rarer and smaller towards the south; 
and of Pecten islandicns y which does not reach 
Britain. While gathering these northern shells, I 
thought of the remarkable parallelism between the 
distribution of the Arctic fauna and flora in Britain. 
Just as we have the remains of an Arctic flora, once 



iv.] ARCTIC SHELLS. 213 

overspreading the whole country, on the summits 
of our highest mountains, so we have the remains 
of an Arctic fauna which peopled all our seas during 
the Glacial epoch in the profoundest depths of our 
western sea-lochs, such as Loch Fyne and the 
Kyles of Skye. A little south of Tarbert, Loch Fyne 
deepens into a basin 624 feet below the surface of 
the water, a far greater depth than that of the sea 
outside, and clearly indicating that this narrow 
inlet is a submerged land valley, whose bed, if suf- 
ficiently upheaved, would be marked by a fresh- 
water loch, like Loch Lomond. From this profound 
abyss Professor E. Forbes and Mr. McAndrew,'in 
1845, brought up with the dredge an extraordinary 
assemblage of molluscan animals, eminently Arctic 
in their character, once common in all our seas, 
ranging from the shore-line downwards. When the 
beds of these glacial seas were upheaved, several 
of the more delicate molluscs perished under the 
change of conditions, while others more accom- 
modating survived. As the climate became more 
genial, the northern and Arctic shells that lived in 
the littoral zones retreated northwards, driven out 
by the migration of more temperate forms. Those 
that had greater capacities for vertical range, how- 
ever, remained behind in the deepest parts of our 
sea-lochs, where the conditions of temperature were 
still suitable ; and to this narrow range they are 
now restricted. The extreme scarcity of these 
Arctic shells in a living state, and the comparative 
abundance of dead valves, seem to indicate, as 



214 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

Professor Forbes suggested, that the species thus 
isolated are now slowly dying out : so that the 
time may not be far distant when the last of the 
Arctic forms of the mountain-top and sea-bottom 
will disappear before the inroads of plants and 
animals of a milder climate, that will spread uni- 
formly over all parts of land and sea. In connexion 
with the mollusca of Norway the singular fact 
may be mentioned, that some of its characteristic 
Arctic species are found as fossils in Italy and 
Sicily ; and that other perfectly identical species 
are found living at the present day in the Medi- 
terranean and Adriatic and in the North Sea, 
which are absent on the intervening coasts of the 
Atlantic, the only route by which, according to the 
present arrangement of Europe, they could have 
reached the one locality from the other. Among 
the living species common to Italy and Norway are 
Nephrops Norvegicus, Lota abyssorwn, Sebastes im- 
perialism Macronrus ccelorhynchus y and two shells 
found by Professor Sars of Christiania, in t he sea 
at Bergen, Cerithium vulgatum, and Monodonta 
limbata. The presence of these mollusca in the 
Mediterranean and in Norway, with their absence 
from the intermediate coast, is supposed to be owing 
to a connexion that existed during the Post-Pliocene 
period to the east of Europe, between the Mediter- 
ranean and the North 'Sea, which was interrupted 
at a later period by the elevation of the Alps. 1 

1 This theory is still further confirmed by the flora of Sweden. 
Several of the most characteristic plants of Gothland, an island in 



iv.] HORNELEN ROCK. 215 

At nine o'clock at night a Government steamer 
employed in the postal service, and carrying on 
the traffic with all the stations on the Bergen 
route, appeared in sight. We rowed out to it in 
a small boat, and then" steamed down the fjord, 
through the most intricate labyrinths of hills and 
islands. There is one rock rising 1,200 feet per- 
pendicularly from the water, shaped like a huge 
cathedral with a gigantic tower at either end. It 
is called Hornelen, and our steamboat was named 
after it. It is the loftiest and most massive sea- 
cliff in Norway south of the Luffoden Isles. A 
great slice of it had fallen down two years pre- 
viously, about two hours after a steamer had 
passed. The scar was still fresh on its side, and the 
debris formed a talus bank at the foot projecting 
into the sea. The depth of the water in this 
narrow channel is said to be very great, there 
being no soundings for two thousand feet. After 
spending some hours on deck, admiring the wild 
and ever-changing scenery, and watching the giving 
out empty and taking in full herring-barrels at 
the different stations at which we called, we retired 
to our berths and slept till about seven o'clock in 
the morning, when we found ourselves among the 

the Gulf of Bothnia — such as Helianthemttm fumana, Inula ensi- 
folia, and Serapias rubra — are identical with those of the limestone 
mountains of Austria ; while the vegetation of the neighbouring 
island of Oland is of a decidedly Mediterranean, or even African, 
type. Among its rarer plants may be mentioned Heliantheirium 
CElandicum, Carex obtusata, Artemisia laciniata^ Anemone sylvestris, 
Ulmus effusa, and Viola persicifolia. 



216 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

skerries on the coast, within forty miles of Bergen. 
These rocky islets are very remarkable. They 
occur in countless numbers all along the coast 
from Christiania to the North Cape, and though 
composed of gneiss afford a striking proof of the 
tremendous abrading action of one of the stormiest 
seas in the world. They are of various sizes, from 
a huge boulder barely rising above the level of 
the water, to lofty castellated crags many acres in 
extent, and are either bare or covered with shrubs 
or fir-trees. Between them the sea winds in and 
out in the most intricate fashion, and they are so 
like each other that it is astonishing how the pilot 
can thread his way among them. There is never 
any of that sloping which distinguishes the shores 
of other countries. Quite close to the rocks the 
depth is in some places unfathomable. In many 
instances the narrow creeks and channels run 
far inland, so that it is frequently necessary to 
journey a hundred miles by land between two 
places not more than two or three miles apart in a 
straight line. Many of the skerries are shaped like 
the Devonshire tors ; they are what are called in 
geological language roches moutonnees, rounded, 
smoothed, and polished hummocks, moulded by 
the passage of a thick body of ice over them during 
the Glacial epoch, and marked, many of them very 
distinctly, by close parallel flutings, indicating the 
direction of the moving ice. From these glacial 
markings, where no ice is now to be seen, we can 
trace by the characteristic evidence of striae, moraines 



iv.] RISING OF NORWEGIAN COAST. 217 

and boulders, the course of ancient glaciers up to 
the great ice-fields of Justedal and the Folgefond, 
still existing in the interior. We must regard the 
present glaciers of Norway as the shrunken remains 
and silent witnesses, in a milder climate, of immense 
glaciers which at one time stretched down and 
filled each valley, and went out to sea like the 
glaciers of Greenland at the present day. 

The glaciated skerries, judging from the pro- 
found depths of water around them, are the tops 
of submerged mountains, and the fjords that wind 
among them deep glens that have not yet fairly 
risen out of the sea. That Norway has been slowly 
rising from the sea within comparatively recent 
times is proved by many indisputable signs. On 
the shoal or bank which lies out in the Christiania 
fjord to the west of Drobak, and w r hich is from sixty 
to ninety feet deep, there are immense masses of a- 
peculiar coral called O at Una prolifera, firmly at- 
tached to the solid rock, though dead and stripped 
bare of its formative polyps. This coral is found 
on the western and northern coast of Norway in 
a living state, only at the vast depth of from 1,000 
to 2,000 feet, where it forms large, bush-shaped 
clusters about two feet in diameter. The fact of 
its occurrence in a dead state on the Drobak bank 
proves beyond doubt that that bank was elevated 
to the extent of at least 800 feet, when the polyps, 
incapable of bearing the increased temperature of 
the shallower water, died in situ. On the same 
bank, also in a dead state, is found the Lima 



218 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

excavata, a species of shell-fish which lives only in 
the region of the deep-sea corals, at from 150 to 
300 fathoms. Professor Forbes and Mr. Robert 
Chambers speak of "the great freshness of the 
raised terraces which stretch at various heights 
along the coast, as if to show where the surf had 
beat during prolonged intervals in the course of 
upheaval. ,, On these terraces vast quantities of 
shells are frequently found identical with those 
living in the neighbouring seas, and looking as 
fresh as if they had been cast ashore only yester- 
day. Brogniart found balanus shells on the solid 
rock at Udevalla, on the Swedish coast of the 
Cattegat, 200 feet above the present level of the 
sea, and Keilhau near Hellesda, in Aremark, 450 
feet above the sea. The last accomplished geolo- 
gist pointed out to Mr. Robert Chambers serpulae 
still adhering to the face of a rock about a mile 
from Christiania, 186 feet above the surface of the 
fjord. We have thus the best possible proof of an 
elevation of the land during the existence of its 
present fauna. 

Every traveller is greatly struck with the resem- 
blance, only on a larger scale, between the coast 
of Norway and the coast-scenery of the West 
Highlands of Scotland. The same causes, acting 
in similar circumstances, produced this resemblance. 
In Scotland these causes have long been quiescent, 
and we can only speculate and theorize regarding 
their mode of action in the remote past. In Nor- 
way they are still in operation, and their modifying 



iv.] NOR WEGIAN FA UNA IN SCO TLAND. 219 



effects may be seen fresh and recent in many- 
places. Norway may be regarded as a connecting 
link between the present state of Greenland and 
the state of Scotland during the Glacial epoch. 
When Scotland had its glaciers and snow-fields, 
Norway was completely enveloped in ice ; and now 
that the line of perpetual snow has gone beyond 
the summits of our highest hills, we recall in the 
perpetual snow regions of Norway the appearance 
of our own country at the close of the Glacial 
epoch, when the glaciers were retreating from 
the coast into the high grounds of the interior. 
Not only in geological development, but also so 
far as progress during the historical epoch is con- 
cerned, Norway may be regarded as " a larger 
Scotland post-dated," a country still in its green 
youth, while Scotland is in its old age. The forests 
that overspread its surface at the present day are 
like the extensive forests of Scotland during the 
Roman invasion, whose remains are found in our 
numerous peat-mosses. The existing Norwegian 
fauna once roamed in our woods and hills. In 
Caithness the reindeer lingered until about the 
beginning of the thirteenth century. The Ork- 
neyinga Saga relates that the Jarls of Orkney 
crossed over to the mainland to hunt it in the 
twelfth century. Acccording to tradition, the last 
wolf in Scotland was slain in 1680 by the famous 
Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel. There is ample 
evidence to prove that the brown bear lived in this 
country less than a thousand years ago. Up to 



220 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

the middle of last century the capercailzie, or 
great cock of the woods, the largest member of 
the grouse family, abounded in our woods. It 
disappeared with the destruction of the Caledonian 
forest, the cones of which formed its principal food ; 
and though it has been reintroduced from Norway, 
it is confined to one or two districts, where it is 
almost as tame as a barn-door fowl. In the 
highest solitudes of the Grampians still linger the 
Alpine hare and ptarmigan, the last survivors of 
the ancient Norwegian fauna of our country, which 
owe their preservation to their power of adapting 
themselves to their circumstances, changing the 
colour of their fur and plumage, a provision which 
not only regulates the temperature of their bodies 
according to the changes of the seasons, but by 
assimilating them to the prevailing colours of the 
scenes amid which they live, enables them to elude 
the keen eyes of their numerous enemies. Thus 
the wild animals of Norway are those which for- 
merly lived in Scotland, but are now nearly all 
extinct. The manners and customs of the Nor- 
wegians in the remoter districts are also those of 
our ancestors several hundred years ago, and their 
udal system of land proprietorship is that which 
existed in Scotland prior to the introduction of 
clanship and feudalism, and the remains of which 
may still be seen in the existence among us of 
" bonnet lairds," similar to the Norwegian "bonder/* 
who cultivate the small properties which they 
inherit. Thus a visit to Norway gives the Scotch- 



iv.] BERGEN. 221 

man an admirable idea of the appearance of his 
country and the condition of his ancestors in the 
Middle Ages. 

No incident of any moment occurred while we 
threaded our way in and out among the skerries — 
except that at breakfast in the cabin a member of 
our party who had a peculiar penchant for sausages 
persuaded one of the ladies to taste a particular 
kind, on the plea that he had found it exceedingly 
nice. He asked the waiter if it was made of rein- 
deer venison, and grew somewhat solemn — as well 
as his fair Eve — when told that it was genuine 
horse-flesh ! We arrived at Bergen at two o'clock, 
and were delighted with its picturesque appearance 
and romantic situation. It is built upon two bays 
of the fjord, with a narrow point of elevated land 
between them, on which stands the fortress of 
Bergenhuus, where formerly stood the palace of 
King Olaf, the founder of the town. It is sur- 
rounded by steep and rugged mountains, between 
two and three thousand feet high, so that you have 
all the bustle of a commercial town quite close to 
the loneliness and grandeur of an Alpine solitude. 
The narrow harbour is always crowded with ship- 
ping, and the suburbs at the base of the mountains 
are occupied with gardens, and country villas 
embosomed among woods, with green lawns sloping 
•down to the fjord. Outside the town there is a 
magnificent avenue of old linden trees about a mile 
long, from whence beautiful glimpses of the sur- 
rounding scenery may be obtained. This is the 



222 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

most northern limit of this tree, and yet it is as 
full grown and majestic here as in the avenues of 
England or Germany. We heard a sermon in the 
fine old cathedral, and inspected the antiquities 
and objects of natural history in the museum. The 
antiquities are principally sepulchral urns, arms, 
Runic inscriptions, Norwegian coins dating from 
the time of Haco the Good in the tenth century, 
and a curious old Byzantine picture presented to 
one of the churches in the Sogne fjord in the 
eleventh century by a sea-king who had procured 
it from Constantinople. I observed that there were 
no contributions to this department from the 
Arctic provinces. Worsa, the director of the 
museum of northern antiquities at Copenhagen, 
informed me, while conducting me over the rooms 
devoted to relics of the Stone period, that all these 
stone implements came from Denmark and the 
southern parts of Sweden and Norway — none 
having been found in the northern parts. The 
inference is therefore clear that these northern 
provinces were unoccupied by man during the 
earliest ages of British and continental history. 
This theory coincides with the evidences of phy- 
sical geography, and points to the gradual amelio- 
ration of the climate in these regions. 

We were greatly amused by the extraordinary 
character and variety of the costumes of the pea- 
sants from the surrounding districts, who came in 
to Bergen to do their marketing. Some of these 
peasants are said to be of Scotch extraction — a 



iv.] FISH-MARKET. 223 

large colony of Scotchmen having settled about 
the twelfth century in the neighbourhood of 
Bergen. Some of the women had white shirt- 
sleeves, scarlet jackets, gorgeous breastplates of 
coloured beads, and white caps of the most ex- 
traordinary shapes and dimensions. Others had 
green jackets and dark caps. It is a great pity 
that both in Switzerland and Norway the pic- 
turesque costumes of the peasants should to so 
large an extent be abandoned for the uniform 
and unmeaning dress of all classes throughout 
Europe. We paid a visit to the fish-market, which 
is one of the most interesting sights of the place. 
All the fish — of which there is an immense variety 
— are brought in alive, and kept swimming about 
in tubs of salt water until purchased ; for a Nor- 
wegian would never think of buying a dead fish ; 
he likes to be assured by more senses than one 
that it is quite fresh. Among the fish we noticed 
grey gurnards, torskwrasse, of many colours, and 
coalfish (Gadus carbonarius) in shape and size like 
a salmon, with a black back and a silvery belly. 
There were also a few specimens of the bergelt, or 
Norwegian haddock (Sebastes Norvegicus), some- 
what like a perch, which exhibits all the hues of the 
gold fish. It is caught in very deep water with 
long sea-lines, and is considered a great delicacy. 
Bergen has the reputation of being one of the 
rainiest places in the world. The average number 
of rainy days in the year is said to be 200. 
s This extreme humidity is shown not only in the 



224 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

actual amount of the rainfall, but in the almost 
constant presence of large quantities of aqueous 
vapour in the atmosphere, even on days that are 
considered clear and bright. This constant wet 
blanket spread over the town, if it does damp 
the joys of the inhabitants and engender melan- 
choly "vapours/' gives compensation by greatly 
modifying the severity of the winter. Pro- 
bably the range of temperature throughout the 
year is smaller and the mean annual temperature 
higher in Bergen than in any other place so far 
from the equator. During our residence, however, 
there was not a cloud in the sky, which was as 
deep-blue and transparent as that of France or 
Italy. The heat was tropical, and we had to dodge 
the sun continually in our walks through the dusty 
and glowing streets. The mere effort of writing a 
letter in a room where all the windows were thrown 
wide open threw me into a profuse perspiration. I 
love to look back upon the wonderful beauty of the 
nights we spent at Bergen. From my bedroom 
window I looked out for hours with intense enjoy- 
ment of the scene. Below, the gaily-painted houses 
looked ghostly in the tender twilight that brooded 
over them ; above, the moon shone large and golden 
in the blue languid sky, casting down a path of 
light along the surface of the placid fjord. The 
mountains, mellowed down and empurpled by the 
sunset, reposed with a dream-like beauty on the 
near horizon ; while the stillness was broken by 
sounds that harmonized with it — the ripple of a 



iv.] BERGEN BY NIGHT. 225 

passing oar, or a simple song heard clear and dis- 
tinct from afar. The whole air and appearance 
of the place at such a time reminded me more 
of Oriental cities described in the Arabian 
Tales, than a matter-of-fact Norwegian town, 
crammed with odoriferous stock-fish and casks of 
cod-liver oil. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SKJEGGEDAL-FOSS IN NORWAY. 

'SOME one has remarked that mountains present 
peculiar attractions to men, while women find in 
waterfalls something more congenial to their nature. 
This, like a great many other general statements, 
is probably too large an induction from the facts 
of the case. It is true that the membership of the 
" Alpine Club " has been confined exclusively to 
the male sex ; but, in districts favoured with a 
famous waterfall, it has not been found that the 
fair sex have monopolized the services of the local 
guide. Ever since the discovery of the picturesque 
in nature, during the present century, both sexes 
seem to have shared indiscriminately in the ad- 
miration which mountains and waterfalls call forth. 
If there be any preference shown by women, it is 
perhaps due to the fact that waterfalls are more 
accessible than mountains, and do not require for 
their cultivation specialties of dress and muscular 
development. Notwithstanding this, however, it 
seems to me that there is a measure of truth in 
the aphorism. I believe that the mountain does 



chap, v.] WATERFALLS LN GENERAL. 227 

harmonize more with the masculine than with 
the feminine character. Its' ruggedness, solidity, 
height, and changelessness symbolize peculiarly 
manly qualities ; while the toil, patience, and 
endurance needed in its ascent are exercises in 
which man delights. It appeals in its form and 
associations to his sense of power and self-reliance. 
The waterfall, on the other hand, speaks more to 
the gentleness and softness of the feminine nature. 
It is moulded by the form of the rocks and by the 
play of the winds, and it yields itself gracefully to 
the influences of its circumstances. The continuous 
murmur and fall of the snow-white water; the 
unity and variety of the forms which it presents ; 
the quick play of light and shade on its surface ; 
the rainbow that opens its blossom of light amid 
its spray ; the tender and graceful vegetation 
which its perpetual moisture nourishes around it, 
from the aspen that trembles to its shout, and the 
birch that hangs its tresses in its foam, to the moss 
that cushions the ledges of its rocks, and the lichen 
that makes its cliffs hoary : all these features of 
the waterfall appeal to qualities that are more 
often found in woman than in man. 

Waterfalls, however, are very varied. Some are 
quite as masculine in their character as mountains. 
They have no soft and graceful surroundings. 
They do not hide themselves in the loneliest 
recesses of glens, protected by cliffs and shaded 
by foliage ; but leap in the open light of day, in 
straight lines, from the brink of naked precipices. 

Q 2 



228 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

Grandeur and sublimity are their sole charac- 
teristics. In proportion to their height and volume, 
they lose their picturesqueness and beauty; and 
appeal to another order of feelings in the human 
bosom. This is especially true of the Norwegian 
waterfalls. They possess grandeur, but not beauty. 
Owing to the peculiar formation of the country, it 
is rare to find that gradual sloping of the stream, 
and that succession of leaps, fringed with trees and 
shrubs, which contribute so much to the picturesque- 
ness of a waterfall. The mountains are immense 
tablelands or plateaus, terminating abruptly on 
both sides in lofty mural precipices. Consequently 
the streams that are formed on them from the 
melting of the snows in summer, after running a 
short course, fall sheer down into the glen or the 
fjord ; whereas in this country or in Switzerland 
the mountains are constructed, not in the embattled 
style, but on the ridge and furrow principle, and 
slope gently into the valleys, so that the streams 
that gather in their bosom flow gradually down, 
increase as they flow, and form a succession of 
waterfalls, according as they meet with rocks in 
their course. The waterfalls of Norway are thus 
necessarily higher than those of any other part of 
Europe ; but they want the fringing of woods and 
the concealment of picturesque rocks peculiar to 
more gradual falls. 

Waterfalls are also more numerous in Norway 
than they are anywhere else. "The mountains," 
to u.se the expressive language of a Belgian 






v.] NORWEGIAN WATERFALLS. 229 

tourist whom I met at Utne, " are peopled with 
them." They lend animation to every scene, and 
hang from every cliff their scarf of liquid drapery. 
Hundreds of cascades unknown to fame, though far 
higher and grander than the Marbore fall, near 
the Gavarnie, in the Pyrenees, or the too celebrated 
Staubbach in Switzerland, may be seen in the course 
of a single day's journey in the interior. The Riu- 
kan-foss, or Reeking Fall, in Upper Thelemarken, 
drops almost perpendicularly . about 800 feet into 
a gulf so filled with vapour that its bottom 
cannot be seen. The body of water is very con- 
siderable, being the overflowing of the Mioswasser, 
a lake thirty miles long and more than two miles 
broad. The Sarpen-foss is grander than the falls 
of Schaffhausen on the Rhine, being formed by 
the united waters of the Lougen and the Glommen, 
the two largest rivers in Norway, which drain the 
whole of the east side of the country for more 
than 300 miles. The height of the fall is eighty 
feet, and almost equals in volume of water the 
famous Trollhatta Fall, by which Lake Venner in 
Sweden empties itself through the Gotha-Elv into 
the Cattegat. The most numerous as well as the 
finest waterfalls in Norway, however, are to be seen 
in the Hardanger district. In this region are the 
Rembiedals-foss and the Skyttie-foss — both very 
' magnificent falls, though situated in remote out-of- 
i the-way glens, and therefore visited by few travellers. 
Here, too, is the better-known Ostud-foss, which 
1 falls into the depths of the Steindal valley, not far 



230 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

from the station-house of Vikor. 1 But by far the 
most celebrated of the waterfalls of the Hardanger 
is the Voring-foss, said indeed to be the grandest 
cataract in Europe, and the lion of Norway. Its 
height is upwards of 900 feet, and its volume of 
water fully larger than that of the Handek in 
Switzerland. A Frenchman on one occasion was 
so excited at the thought of visiting it, that even 
when his steamer entered the Hardanger fjord, 
nearly a hundred miles distant, he broke out in a 
transport of enthusiasm, " I am coming near it ; 
I am coming near; for thirty year I dream of 
Voring-foss." The spectacle is indeed grand be- 
yond description ; but it labours under the great 
disadvantage that it cannot be seen from below. 
I believe that one or two daring cragsmen suc- 
ceeded in getting pretty near the foot of it ; 
but their view of the waterfall was greatly ob- 
structed by a projecting rock. The ordinary 
tourist sees it from the edge of a great precipice 
at a considerable height above the top of the fall. 
Keeping a firm hold of the guide's hand — if you 
have sufficient nerve and are not oppressed with 
giddiness— you can bend your body half over, and 
look down into the awful abyss filled with seething 
waters and blinding mists. A vision of a great 
white mass of foam falling, minute after minute, 

1 Murray has evidently taken his description of it on trust from 
some imaginative native, for the proportions which he gives are 
vastly exaggerated. It pours over its rock certainly more water than 
" a gill in a minute," but, like Southey's " Force of Lodore," it is 
very disappointing to the eager visitor. 



v.] THE SKJEGGEDAL-FOSS. 231 

pausing as it were at intervals in mid-air, but still 
falling down, down, far out of sight into the bowels 
of the earth, with a roar that seems to shake the 
rocks to their foundations, is caught during the 
frenzied gaze and photographed upon the memory 
for ever. Woe betide the unhappy tourist who is 
seized by nightmare the first time he goes to sleep 
after having stood on this giddy height ! 

Within the last few years a waterfall has been 
known to the tourist-world which promises to rival 
the Voring-foss. The Skjeggedal-foss — for such 
is its jaw-breaking name — is not nearly so high ; 
but the body of water is larger, the scenery is 
more savage, and it can be approached quite close 
and seen in all its grandeur from the foot. Opinions 
are very much divided regarding the claim of 
each to pre-eminence. Very few have visited the 
Skjeggedal-foss ; and therefore the notices of it 
are exceedingly scanty. Murray does not mention 
it at all. In the " Dag-boks " at Vossevangen and 
Odde I found it praised by one in the most ex- 
travagant terms as decidedly the finest waterfall 
in Norway, while another entry was to this effect : 
"The Skjeggedal-foss should be seen before and 
not after the Voring-foss." 

Happening to be with a party of friends at Odde, 
a small picturesque village at the extremity of the 
Sor fjord — a branch of the Hardanger, and the 
nearest starting-point for the Skjeggedal-foss — I 
determined to judge for myself regarding the merit 
of this cascade. Accordingly, accompanied by a 



232 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

friend, I set out on Wednesday the 17th July, at 
seven o'clock in the morning. We secured the 
services of Lars Olsen, a native of Odde, who dis- 
charged the duties of guide throughout the day in 
the most admirable manner, and whom we have 
therefore much pleasure in recommending to future 
travellers. There was all the interest and excite- 
ment of discovery about our adventure. It was 
something to boast of, to be able to visit a scene 
unknown to the ubiquitous Murray, to act as the 
pioneers of that paladin of modern times, and 
perhaps add an interesting paragraph to future 
editions of the well-known red Handbook of 
Scandinavia. The morning was all that could be 
desired. A few clouds threatened at first to dis- 
charge their watery burdens, but they soon passed 
off, and the sun shone brightly in a blue and un- 
clouded sky. We laid in a comfortable stock of 
provisions, as the excursion, we were told, would 
occupy the whole day. Two smart fellows from 
Scotland recorded the fact that they had done 
it in eight hours, but sensible men who were not 
walking for a wager, and who preferred enjoying 
scenery to doing it under steam-pressure, gave 
their evidence that it could not be managed in less 
than twelve or fourteen. The latter verdict we 
found from our own experience to be the true one. 
We brought with us waterproofs on account of the 
lowering appearance of the sky at starting, but we 
found them very serviceable afterwards, enabling 
us to approach nearer the waterfall than we could 



v.] GLACIER OF THE FOLGEFOND. 233 

otherwise have done, without being drenched by 
the spray. Lars had his provender carefully rolled 
up in a coloured pocket-handkerchief; it consisted 
of about six square feet of fladbrod — a kind of 
very thin barley-scone — and a small piece of raw 
mutton dried into the hardness and colour of a 
mahogany slab, and needing no further cooking. 

Stepping at the quay into one of those rickety 
Norwegian boats, sharp at both ends, which are so 
alarming at first to timid sailors, we rowed up the 
fjord for about four miles. The sea here is very 
narrow, and the banks on both sides very steep 
and lofty. At the foot of the left bank are green 
patches of cultivated land here and there, and 
clusters of picturesque red wooden houses ; in the 
higher region "pines and birches fringe the ledges 
of the rocks ; while on the sky-line the great glacier 
of the Folgefond shows its white teeth in every 
hollow between the cliffs. In some places the 
glacier was suspended over the edge of a pre- 
cipitous rock far up in the air, and one felt afraid 
in passing underneath lest the huge mass should 
be loosened and fall down with a mighty plunge 
into the fjord. Many of the houses look as if 
they lay directly in the path of the avalanches, 
great talus-heaps of debris lying perilously close to 
them. The overhanging tongues of ice were very 
beautiful, being much crevassed, and showing in 
every wrinkle and hollow that marvellously vivid 
sapphire colour with which every glacier-student 
is familiar. Nothing could exceed the purity of the 



234 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

ice, or the stainless whiteness of the snow — in this 
respect presenting a striking contrast to the dis- 
coloured glaciers of Switzerland, whose dirty faces 
no amount of Alpine rain can wash clean. Some 
years ago, when the supply of ice in London was 
nearly exhausted, a ship was chartered to the Har- 
danger, and brought home a cargo of magnificent 
fragments of the Folgefond glacier. Though the 
experiment answered admirably in every way, I 
am not aware that it has been repeated. 

Calm and still as the morning was, we did not 
hear the tinkle of the bells of the lost seven 
parishes said to be buried on account of their great 
wickedness under the everlasting snows of the 
Folgefond, and which many superstitious ears have 
heard on certain propitious days. This tradition 
is very similar to that of the Bliimlis Alp in Switz- 
erland, and, like it, is evidently not altogether a 
myth. It tells of a change of climate, and of a 
gradual advancement of glaciers, overwhelming dis- 
tricts once fertile and inhabited, of which many 
traces may be seen in the physical appearances 
around. For hundreds of years the Folgefond 
glacier is said to have remained stationary, but it 
is most certainly advancing in one direction ; for 
during a visit to the small tongue which descends 
on the east side to within a thousand feet of the 
sea-level, called the Buerbrae iis, I saw the ice dis- 
tinctly moving, stones falling from its edge, and the 
ground newly ploughed up before it. The right 
bank of the Sor fjord is more precipitous than the 



v.] HARDANGER FJORD. 235 



left, though not so wild and Alpine-looking. Huge 
masses of broken rocks are piled above each other, 
like a Titanic battle-field, at the edge of the water. 
Bright green birches, with uncommonly white 
stems, are interspersed among them, and soften 
their harshness, while high overhead the precipices 
form a gigantic wall, with a fringe of pine-trees 
gleaming along their ledges in the sunlight, like the 
spears of a celestial army. Little streamlets on 
both sides flow down the rocky gullies in one long 
continuous line of foam from the clouds to the sea, 
and make a pleasant all-pervading murmur in the 
air. The water of the Hardanger fjord in this 
place is of a deep green tint, and in the chart is 
marked as upwards of a thousand feet deep. There 
is no shelving shore, but the rocks go straight down 
into the profound depths. 

After two hours' rowing through this magnificent 
scenery, we came, on the right bank of the fjord, to 
the entrance of a wild gorge, through which flowed 
the foaming waters of the Skjeggedal torrent. An 
enormous wall of rock rose up on the left side with- 
out a ledge or a break, destitute of the slightest 
tinge of verdure. On the other side the precipice 
was more sloping, and admitted here and there of 
a few clumps of birches and pines growing on its 
shelving sides. The mouth of the gorge was filled 
with great banks of debris brought down by the 
stream in the course of ages ; and on these, which 
were carefully cultivated, stood a small but very 
neat-looking hamlet, called Tyssedal. The people 



236 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

were busy hay-making — gathering the natural 
grass, and piling it, to dry in the sun, on the upright 
framework of wood which is erected as a perma- 
nency in every hay-field in Norway. Two or three 
sunburnt girls, with green bodices, white sleeves, 
and unusually large picturesque-looking caps, were 
singing a wild Norwegian jodl, while tossing about 
the hay. The position of this hamlet struck us as 
exceedingly precarious. It seemed to fill up all the 
available space in the gorge, and it looked as if a 
storm of more than ordinary severity might have 
washed both houses and fields down into the sea. 

Crossing the foaming torrent, which for half a 
mile agitated the placid waters of the fjord, we 
moored our boat in a sheltered creek, and stepped 
on shore. As we entered the frowning portals of 
the gorge, leading to the great inner mystery of the 
waterfall, we had a feeling of strange awe, such as 
the Assyrians of old must have experienced when 
passing between the monstrous human-headed bulls 
that guarded the gates of their temples. Our course 
at first lay up the steep bank of the river on the 
right hand, through a fine wood of Scotch firs, 
whose great red trunks and rich green foliage 
would have done credit to any nobleman's park. 
The sun shone through the openings between the 
trees in bright belts of gold on the mossy sward, 
crowded with myriads of whortleberries, whose 
glossy leaves and clusters of white bells excited our 
admiration. I never saw such a quantity of the 
beautiful Linncea borealis — named after the im- 



v.] FIRWOOD IN THE GORGE. 237 



mortal botanist, and called by the Norwegians 
windgrds — growing anywhere as in this wood. 
Its modest pink blossoms covered every available 
space, and its rich fragrance pervaded all the air, 
producing, along with the resinous scent of the firs, 
a peculiarly delightful and exhilarating impression. 
Fine specimens of the Melampyrtim sylvaticum, 
with flow r ers larger and yellower than those of the 
same species in this country, bloomed on every 
side. Ferns abounded : clusters of the tall Strict hi- 
opteris germanica, lovely patches of the fragile oak 
fern, and, above all, large tufts of the Woodsia 
growing everywhere among the stones. This last 
fern, which in this country is only found in two or 
three remote localities among the loftiest mountains, 
is very common and abundant by the waysides in 
many parts of Norway — indeed, as common almost 
as the Polypodium vulgare with us. There were 
also numerous anthills, formed of the dry needles 
of the fir, like those with which the tourist is familiar 
in the pine-w r oods of Braemar. Some of these were 
of enormous dimensions, and their tenants were 
swarming in myriads on the outside, running up 
and down to warm themselves in the sunshine. A 
stick thrust into one of the hills smelt overpower- 
ingly of formic acid. 

Gradually, as we passed through this enchanting 
wood, where everything was left to fall or grow in 
the wild yet graceful disorder of nature, the path 
became steeper and less defined. In some places 
it consisted only of a tree-trunk fixed along the 



238 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

sloping side of a granite rock by an iron bolt. Over 
this precarious footway we practised successfully a 
series of tight-rope performances. We were struck 
with the curious appearance of some of the nearer 
gneissic rocks, forming bands of thin, regular strata, 
lying over each other, exactly like the huge, un- 
shapely slates on the roofs of Norwegian houses, or 
the armour-plate of a man-of-war, and covered 
with the black stains of a species of Lecidea. On 
emerging from the wood, we found ourselves on a 
kind of plateau of bare rock, without a particle 
of vegetation — not even a lichen or a moss to tint 
its surface. It was perfectly smooth, and sloped 
rapidly down at a perilous inclination for a few 
yards, terminating abruptly in a precipice. Across 
this steep slope the guide walked without a 
moment's hesitation, his flat shoes catching firm 
hold of any roughness in the rock. I followed 
mechanically, though not without considerable 
trepidation, for the soles of my boots were very 
thick and slippery, and I knew that if I lost my 
footing I could not recover it, but would be hurled 
with fearful momentum down the slope into the 
abyss. One shuddering glimpse I caught of a wild 
whirlpool of waters far below made my blood run 
cold ; and as in this case discretion was the better 
part of valour, I am not ashamed to own that I 
willingly submitted to " a spirit of infirmity/' and 
crawled on all fours. To make matters still worse, 
we had to ascend, about the middle of the passage, 
to a higher stratum of sloping rock by means of a 



v.] " HO TEL D U SKJEGGEDAL-FOSS" 239 

fir-trunk, with notches cut in the side of it for 
steps. I need hardly say that I breathed more 
freely and saw more grandeur in the scenery when 
we reached the other side of this dangerous roof. 
The pathway after this was along the edge of a 
precipice, but its terrors were concealed by a pro- 
fusion of trees and bushes. In a wider space, we 
came upon a man and his wife busy erecting a 
wooden hut from the materials on the spot. An 
axe was their only tool, and it was w T onderful what 
a shapely framework they had constructed by its 
means, without any nails. We asked them what 
induced them to build a house in such a spot. It 
could not be a saeter or hill-farm, for there was no 
grass around, and no possibility of housing or feed- 
ing cattle on such a precipitous slope. The man 
replied that it was intended to be an inn — I sup- 
pose the " Hotel du Skjeggedal-foss." It seemed a 
very hopeless speculation in present circumstances, 
but it w 7 as an idea worthy of the genius that first 
thought of an inn on the top of Snowdon, on the 
Riffelhorn, or the St. Theodule Pass, and deserved 
from its very boldness and originality to succeed. 
Perhaps this sketch may be the means of bringing 
custom to the place. If so, the only commission I 
shall expect as a touter from the hotel-keeper and 
his lady is a bottle of the best Baiersk 01 the next 
time I pass by their hospitable door, for in my 
thirst and fatigue I grievously missed it on this 
occasion. 

We had now reached the highest point of the 



240 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

ascent, and were congratulating ourselves that all 
danger and cause of fear to weak nerves were past, 
when we came to a staircase that beat all structures 
of the kind I have ever seen. It descended for 
about twelve yards at an angle of some fifty-five 
degrees, and consisted of rough irregular steps pro- 
jecting an inch or two beyond each other. On the 
one side was a lofty wall of rock dripping wet, and 
covered with bright green mosses and gelatinous 
masses of vegetable growth, so that there was very 
little hold for the hands, while on the other there 
was a sheer precipice, and far below a raging torrent 
falling into a hideously black linn ; and from this 
danger there was nothing, not even the slightest 
handrail, to give one a feeling of security. It was 
a place to try the nerves even of a member of the 
Alpine Club. We crawled down, clinging to every 
projection with tooth and nail, the calves of our 
legs all the time trembling like a jelly. When we 
got safely to the bottom, we thought that we had 
accomplished a feat to be proud of all our days, 
but our vanity received a severe shock when the 
guide, looking back upon the staircase, said in the 
most matter-of-fact voice, " Det er ond plads for 
hesten" (That is a bad place for horses). After all, 
we had only done what a quadruped was in the 
habit of doing ; though how a great long creature 
like a horse could manage to come down this break- 
neck place, with nothing to cling to, was a puzzle 
which I cannot yet understand. I can only say 
that I should like to see him at it. Astley might 



v.] DESCENT OF STAIR. 241 

get a new idea from it. There is a kind of saeter, 
or hill-farm, farther up the gorge ; and its dairy 
produce, it seems, is strapped on a horse, and thus 
carried down to Odde, where it is sold for groceries 
and other needful articles, which are brought back 
in the same picturesque fashion. Of course, no 
one could ride on horseback along the path by 
which we had come, although we found an entry 
in the "dag-bok" at Odde, complaining bitterly 
that the innkeeper had refused to give horses for 
the excursion to a lady and her husband ! We had 
previously seen in our carriole-travelling some of 
the remarkable feats of the Norwegian pony, but 
we had no idea he was capable of such an Alpine 
Club exploit as the descent of this staircase, and 
we vowed a vow on the spot that nothing would 
ever induce us to venture upon a path which a 
Norwegian pony could not traverse — a vow which 
we religiously kept. We had now got over two 
very bad places, but of course we had to go back, 
and the thought of returning in the same way did 
not add much to our peace of mind or enjoyment 
of the scenery. It was the sword of Damocles 
suspended over our head. 

The descent from this staircase was very rapid, 
but it was over very rugged ground. We picked 
our way in and out among chaotic masses of large 
loose stones, placed at every possible angle, but 
generally the sharpest side uppermost. At last we 
came unexpectedly upon a little oasis in the wil- 
derness — a quiet nook of cultivated ground. The 

R 



242 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

space here was wider, the rocks having retired to 
a greater distance, and allowed more of the blue 
sky to be seen, and the sun to shine down unob- 
structedly in all his warmth and golden splendour. 
This miracle of refreshing greenness and beauty 
was evidently the slowly-accumulated deposit of 
the denuding power of the stream. The soil, 
though light and shallow, yielded a fair crop of 
potatoes, and the grassy pastures were golden with 
buttercups, and sprinkled with white honey-sweet 
clover blossoms. A cluster of rude wooden houses 
stood on the spot amid clumps of graceful birches. 
A little tarn stretched out in front, into the head of 
which tumbled down an enormous body of foaming 
water from a considerable height, while the other 
end of it, a little way down, discharged a powerful 
torrent that had to force its way through a very 
narrow passage in the rocks. In the struggle, the 
water presented a most lovely appearance, broken 
up and churned into snow-white billows tinged 
with the brightest cerulean hues, like the interior 
of glacier crevasses. It was a sight that had a 
terrible fascination about it, and from which it was 
most difficult to withdraw the eye. As we were 
gazing, spell-bound, a strange specimen of humanity 
came up to us with a peculiar duck-like waddle. 
He was a young man apparently about eighteen 
years of age, blind, dumb, and idiotic. He had no 
chin, and his face had the strange bird-like look 
which we see in the hieroglyphic paintings of the 
Aztecs, or in South American antiquities. He was 



v.] HOUSE OF BONDER. 243 

conscious of the presence of strangers, but he had 
no sense to which we could appeal, and we were 
therefore compelled to pity his wretched condition - 
in silence. 

The house into which we entered was that of the 
bonder, or peasant proprietor, and was far superior 
to the others. The whole gorge of the Skjeggedal, 
eight miles in length, and I know not how many in 
breadth, belongs to this man as "udal-land," pay- 
ing no acknowledgment, real or nominal, as a feu 
duty or reddendo, possessed consequently without 
charter, and subject to none of the burdens and 
casualties affecting land held by feudal tenure. 
But as this property consists principally of rock 
and water, it is not very productive. There is a 
great supply of timber, however, and the quantity 
annually cut down and floated on the river to 
the Hardanger ought to yield him a comfortable 
income. He informed us that he had nine milch 
cows, three horses, and twenty sheep, all finding a 
precarious subsistence on the grassy patches laid 
like green carpets on the sloping debris of the rocks. 
He had under him three or four married farm ser- 
vants, holding cottages beside his own with a small 
portion of land, rent free, but under the obligation 
of working for him during a certain number of days 
in the year. Our " bonnet laird " had a wife and 
family of four small children, as shy as the ryper or 
ptarmigan of the fjelds. They were very unlike 
the inhabitants of a civilized world in look and 
dress, and so unaccustomed to visitors that on our 

R 2 



244 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

appearance they fled and hid themselves behind the 
maternal wing. The gudewife — a very slatternly 
woman, with a patient, depressed face — offered us 
a drink of rich milk. The room was large, but 
very bare and cold. Its only furniture consisted 
of a curious cooking-stove, with Pompeian figures 
moulded in its iron sides, two rough bedsteads 
covered with reindeer skins, and a dairy press well 
filled with cheeses, butter, and bowls of milk. On 
the bed was a strange wooden dish, grotesquely 
carved, and painted in red, blue, and yellow, filled 
with a dark, muddy-looking liquor. This was a 
species of ale, prepared, instead of hops, with the 
leaves of a kind of ranunculus called peast, growing 
in miry spots. It is said to possess very peculiar 
intoxicating qualities, inspiring those who drink it 
with extraordinary activity and contempt of danger, 
but leaving a reaction of profound lassitude and 
debility. Tradition points to this beverage as that 
used by the famous Berserkir to inspire them with 
fury when going on their marauding expeditions. 
Our friend the. farmer took a hearty draught of it, 
and offered it to Lars, who very modestly touched 
it with his lips, after having first shaken hands 
with his host and hostess, as the manner of the 
Norwegians is when receiving any favour. It was 
offered to us hesitatingly, but we shook our heads. 
It looked such a disgusting mess, that nothing could 
induce us to try it ; and Lars assured us afterwards 
that it was as abominable to the taste as to the 
sight. We pitied the lot of these poor people, shut 



v.] ISOLATION OF PEASANT-LIFE. 245 



up in this wild dungeon among the rocks, far from 
their fellow-creatures, and isolated from all the 
refining and ennobling influences of civilization. 
The contrast between their winter and summer life 
must be very great. In summer their occupations 
are exceedingly varied, owing to the absence of all 
division of labour; and these are not shortened in 
this latitude by any interval of darkness ; conse- 
quently they have that recreation in change of 
labour, which is perhaps the greatest enjoyment of 
a working man. But to this excessively active 
period succeeds a long winter of nearly nine 
months, during most of which there are only a few 
hours of daylight, while the frequent storms, and 
paths made impassible by snow and ice, prevent 
all communication with their nearest neighbours 
for weeks together. At such times their sufferings 
from enforced idleness and ennui must be very 
great. Indeed it is astonishing, considering the 
wild and gloomy character of the scenery, and the 
loneliness and monotony of their lives, that cases 
such as those of the wretched young man we met 
are not even more frequent. Scotchmen or English- 
men compelled to live in like circumstances would 
infallibly go mad; but the Norwegians are very 
patient and much-enduring, their tastes are simple, 
their wants few, and they have never known any 
other mode of life, so that custom reconciles them 
to what to us would be unendurable. 

At this stage Lars had to resign his office : for 
the duty of conducting us to the waterfall now 



246 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

devolved upon the bonder. Going before us, there- 
fore, we followed him past the hamlet, through 
fields purple with bluebells and the largest and 
loveliest pansies, over a rough wooden bridge, under 
which thundered a foaming torrent, forming a fine 
waterfall among the rocks high on the left. Dressed 
in knee-breeches of well-worn reindeer-skin, we 
greatly admired the symmetry of his calves, and 
the firmness and precision of his tread. His were 
the very legs of a mountaineer, accustomed to 
footing it in the most precarious places. A row of 
large silver buttons— made out of old coins, with 
the image and superscription of Frederick of Den- 
mark still upon them — adorned his blue woollen 
coat, so that he was change for two or three specie 
dollars at any time. He brought us to the boulder- 
strewn edge of the tarn, and, launching his boat, 
speedily ferried us across the troubled waters. We 
landed on a plot of peaty ground, covered with 
tufts of beautiful cross-leaved heather in full rosy 
bloom, and white with the large flowers of the 
Moltiboer, or cloud-berry, which would afford many 
a delicious feast when the rich orange fruit was 
ripe. Clambering up by the side of a craggy 
knoll, over which the aforesaid waterfall precipi- 
tated itself, — so smooth and transparent at the top, 
before it was churned into foam, that the rock 
underneath could be plainly seen, — we came to the 
edge of another lake, four miles in length, and 
about half a mile wide, called the Ringedal's Vand. 
It is upwards of a thousand feet above the level of j 



v.] RINGEDALS VAND. 247 

the Hardanger fjord, and is surrounded on every 
side, except where it discharges itself in the 
cataract, by lofty rocks which rise perpendicularly 
from the water's edge to a height of between two 
and three thousand feet. In a few places only is 
there any sloping ground formed of the debris 
brought down by waterfalls on either side ; and 
such ground, covered with dwarf birches and bright 
green grass, formed a refreshing contrast to the 
dark frown of the barren rocks. I always looked 
out for such places, and had a feeling of relief when 
nearing them, for there at least I knew that I could 
scramble out and find a footing if anything hap- 
pened to the rickety boat. Wherever there are any 
ledges or crevices in the precipices, there the hardy 
spruce and Scotch fir flourish. Hundreds of trees, 
with astonishing pertinacity, cling to the most 
fearful places, where there is hardly a particle of 
soil to nourish them ; and their gnarled roots, fully 
exposed, crawling over the bare rock, look like 
the talons of a bird of prey. When passing by, 
close to the shore, we saw the farmer's servants 
perched above us on a precipitous rock, cutting 
down a huge fir, or lopping off its branches, and 
squaring its trunk for the market — their boat lying 
moored close by ; while, on a projecting crag over 
the cataract, others of them were pushing with a 
long pole into the current the logs that had got 
jammed together in the back water. Both occupa- 
tions looked very perilous, but the men seemed 
cool, smoking their pipes, and hailing us with a 



248 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

very cheery " gud-dag." Lars and the farmer 
took an oar each, and rowed us across the current 
to the other side of the lake in alarming proximity 
to the edge of the waterfall. None but strong and 
practised boatmen could hold their own here, and 
keep the boat in the right place. The breaking of 
an oar would be fatal. The water was cold as ice, 
and very deep, between one and two hundred 
fathoms, the bonder assured us. Its colour was 
dark indigo blue, the colour of the ocean when 
deepest ; but in one or two places, where the depth 
decreased near a projecting promontory of boulders, 
it was of a rich green. Nothing could be more 
soft and tender than the gradations of this tint 
made by the water shoaling to the edge ; gleams 
of malachite and emerald vanishing in transparent 
aqua-marine, and strangely interspersed with 
cobalt hues from the darker depths. It was a 
miracle of colour such as would have astonished 
and delighted a painter's heart. 

Several waterfalls poured down the cliffs on 
either side, the finest of which was the Tysses- 
trengene. It was very peculiar, consisting of two 
distinct falls, formed by two torrents — separate, 
and yet blending strangely together. The one 
leapt down straight as a rod for three or four 
hundred feet, preserving its integrity to the bottom ; 
the other formed a curious curve ; and both dis- 
appeared in a dark chasm, from which issued a 
rainbow-wreathed cloud of spray. A great curtain 
of the purest snow hung over the brow of the rock 



v.] TYSSESTRENGENE. 249 



where they both came in sight, and the blue of the 
sky above it was wonderfully quiet and intense 
from the contrast. Altogether there was something 
so spirit-like and ethereal in the source and destiny 
of these twin waterfalls, issuing apparently from 
the same snow-wreath far up, and vanishing in the 
same rainbow-tinted cloud of spray, that we were 
quite lost in admiration of the sight, and thought 
this of itself a sufficient recompense of our excur- 
sion. On the banks of one of the twin-streams, a 
long way beyond the precipice, there is a mountain- 
farm, called Floren, whose loneliness and dreariness 
must be uncommon even in Norway. Another 
farther down is called Lia. How the inhabitants 
get out of the place and into communication with 
their nearest neighbours is to me incomprehensible. 
The path must be as dreadful as that of the " Dead 
Man's Ride " in Vettie-gial. Looking back, when 
we had advanced about a mile on the lake, the 
scene was truly extraordinary. The rocks had 
come together and closed up the entrance, so that 
we were surrounded on every side by vertical pre- 
cipices, and there seemed no outlet. It required 
little exercise of imagination to picture ourselves 
the ghostly crew of Charon sailing over the Stygian 
pool. There was something truly infernal in the 
look of the place, from which a warm human heart 
recoiled. Dante and Dore might have felt at home 
in it, but our tamer spirits craved for something less 
terrific and more earthly. The sun was shut out 
by the overhanging rocks, and the light was therefore 



250 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

dim and feeble. We were chilled to the marrow 
by the cold air of the water ; and when the clouds 
gathered, and a heavy shower fell, increasing the 
sublimity of the scene, the climax of our discomfort 
was reached. I would advise future visitors to 
take with them, for this part of the way, a plentiful 
supply of rugs, for the temperature, even on the 
hottest day, is like that of the Arctic regions. I 
know not if there be any superstitious legends 
connected with this fearful lake. If not, there 
should be ; for I cannot picture a more appropriate 
haunt for those strange beings, half human and 
half spiritual, which, according to the Northern 
mythology, infest the dark fathomless fjords, and 
require to be appeased every year by the drowning 
of one or more human victims. It seemed easy, in 
such a place, to understand how the wildest tales 
of spirits and monsters of the deep originated. It 
w r ould be almost impossible to live in Norway and 
not be superstitious. The powers of nature are so 
terrible, and on so grand a scale, that they could 
not fail to be personified and invested with a dread 
control over human life. 

Turning the corner of a great dripping promon- 
tory that rose straight from the water into the 
clouds, like a castle of Thor, a sight burst upon us 
which for a minute or two nearly took away our 
breath. It was the Skjeggedal-foss at last ! This 
first glimpse of it was one of those climaxes of 
life which contrast strangely with its usual tame- 
ness and monotony, and make us wonder at the 



v.] THE WATERFALL. 251 

suddenly revealed greatness of our being. There 
before us was the jealously-guarded secret of the 
gorge, of which every object all the way had been 
conscious — the fierce yet beautiful Pythoness of 
this inmost shrine of nature. As if by one consent 
the men paused upon their oars, and we gazed in 
silence. To utter our admiration while that mighty 
tongue was pouring out its mystic secrets to the 
trembling rocks we felt would be sacrilege. All 
waterfalls have a strong family likeness, and should 
therefore be left undescribed for the imagination 
to sketch. This one, however, had some peculiar 
features. The body of water was enormous, and 
the height upwards of 580 feet. It fell sheer down 
from the edge of the precipice without touching the 
rock ; and though a great quantity of vapour was 
disengaged, the vast mass of its waters reached the 
bottom entire with a solid sound like the fall of a 
great avalanche. We were upwards of a mile from 
it, but even at this distance the noise was so pene- 
trating, so transfixing, that the roll of thunder, or 
the firing of artillery, can give no idea of its 
fulness and solemnity. As we drew nearer the 
cataract increased in size and sublimity ; while the 
rocks literally overhung the water. The summits 
of those on the left were broken up into the most 
fantastic outlines — rude resemblances of monks, 
sphinxes, and castles, some of which were half- 
detached and seemed ready to topple down. Great 
patches of snow lay wedged in the shady recesses, 
and increased the peculiarly grey weather-beaten 



252 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

look of the precipices. No more venerable rocks 
than these bold gigantic masses of gneiss and mica- 
schist can be found in the world. They are like 
exposed portions of the skeleton of the earth ; 
and one feels, in looking at them, the appropriate- 
ness of the title, " JEldgamle Rige" " primeval 
kingdom," given to their native country by the 
Norwegian poets. 

We landed on an extensive sloping bank lying 
along the foot of the rocks beside the waterfall. 
This bank was covered with straggling dwarf 
birches, and yielded a rich crop of grass wherever 
there was a clear space of soil among the great 
lichen-covered boulders. It was evidently a saeter, 
for there were two or three ruinous wooden sheds 
erected on it for storing hay until carried down 
by boat to the farm, and several of those curious 
wooden frames for drying it were scattered about. 
In the shallow inlet where we moored our boat, the 
bottom was composed entirely of thin round pieces 
of mica-schist, all of the same size, and so like coins 
that we offered a handful of them playfully to Lars 
as sma penge for ein mark. They had evidently 
been coined in the mint of the waterfall. I gathered 
several very rare lichens and mosses among the 
stones. Nothing could exceed the variety and rich- 
ness of the flowers growing in the more sheltered 
places. It was a curious combination of plants 
which in this country are never seen together. 
Lowland and Alpine species bloomed side by 
side without any incongruity. Bluebells, pansies, 



v.] ALPINE VEGETATION. 253 

marsh-marigolds, lilies of the valley, ragged robins, 
displayed their familiar charms in loving sisterhood 
with the shiest beauties which in Britain are found 
only in one or two isolated spots among the loftiest 
Highland mountains. Ajuga alpina, Bartsia alpina, 
Salix reticulata and herbacea, Pedicularis lapponica, 
Cornus suecica, Rubies arcticus, Smilacina bifolia, 
Saxifraga cernua and rivularis, Thalictrum alpi- 
num, Pinguicula villosa, Sonchus alpinus, Ceras- 
tium alpinum, Ranunculus glacialis, Hierochloe 
borealis, Phleum alpinum; these and many more 
Alpine plants, exceedingly rare in Britain, were 
gathered on this little plot of ground. Here, as on 
the summits of the Highland mountains, the Silene 
acaulis formed great soft carpets on the mossy 
ground, with its tufted foliage hardly seen for the 
multitude of rosy blossoms. The wondrous loveli- 
ness of the large blue eyes of the Alpine Veronica 
— looking out upon me from behind the shelter of 
every stone — haunts me still. And high on the 
tops of the largest boulders the magnificent Saxi- 
fraga cotyledon waved its long rich spike of snowy 
blossoms in every gust of wind. It is well named 
Berg-kongen, " king of the rocks," for it is a truly 
royal plant. It recalled many a delightful memory 
of the Alps, where I gathered it among the grand- 
est scenes. I could have spent a whole day 
botanizing in this rich habitat ; but as our 
time was limited, I was obliged to content my- 
self with the species that came most readily to 
hand, leaving many a rare and beautiful plant 



254 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

" to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the 
desert air." 

Wrapped in our. waterproofs, we climbed among 
the wet rocks, past the limits of vegetation, as near 
as we could venture to the edge of the abyss ; and 
there through a dense writhing mist of spray, which 
poured in streams from our garments, we caught a 
glimpse of a huge wreath of snow lining the sides 
of the caldron all round, which seems to be per- 
petual. Into the heart of this cloven wreath the 
cataract fell with an appalling sound, and from 
thence plunged down in a series of smaller falls 
into the lake. We could not see the nature of the 
linn beneath the cataract, for it was filled with 
blinding vapour, which rushed half-way up the 
sides of the black rocks and fell down again in 
numberless cascades — which of themselves would 
have attracted admiration in any other place. 
High overhead on the sky-line the vast volume of 
water burst over the ledge of rock. We watched 
it descending, churned and ground by the concus- 
sion into the smallest atoms, and yet forming in 
their aggregate mass a snowy pillar of gigantic 
dimensions and irresistible strength. We lingered 
on the spot, loth to leave, fascinated by the inde- 
scribable wildness and terror of the sight; and 
when we did go, we looked behind again and again, 
for the eye was not satisfied with seeing. We 
rowed safely back to the farm, where we had the 
rare luxury of paying a landed proprietor a sum 
equivalent to two shillings and sixpence of English 



v.] RETURN TO ODDE. 255 

money, and receiving in acknowledgment of our 
munificence a hearty shake of the hand and " mange 
tak" (many thanks). The steep staircase was 
ascended with less trepidation than it was de- 
scended : and over the bare house-roof of rock we 
walked with greater boldness, in the erect attitude 
that becomes a man ; having, at the guide's sugges- 
tion, taken the precaution of putting off our shoes, 
and going across in our stockings. All the way as 
we descended we obtained through the trees mag- 
nificent views of the snowy plateau of the Folgefond, 
reddened on its highest part by the exquisite abend- 
gliiken, or after-glow of sunset. We reached Odde 
at eight o'clock, moderately fatigued and immensely 
gratified with our excursion, but leaving the com- 
parative merits of the Voring-foss and the Skjeg- 
gedal-foss an open question, to be settled for himself 
by each tourist who follows in our footsteps. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PASS AND HOSPICE OF THE GREAT 
ST. BERNARD. 

THERE is no episode in continental travel more 
interesting at the time, and more suggestive of 
pleasing memories afterwards, than a visit to the 
Great St. Bernard Hospice. It does one moral as 
well as physical good. The imagination is stimu- 
lated by the associations of the place, and the 
heart filled with the feverish unrest and love of 
excitement so characteristic of the present age is 
rebuked and calmed by the loneliness and mono- 
tony of the life. Every one has heard of its dogs 
and monks, and its travellers rescued from the 
snow-storms. Pictures of it used to excite our 
wonder in the days of childhood ; descriptions of 
it in almost every Swiss tourist's book have inte- 
rested us in maturer years ; while not a few of us 
have made a pilgrimage to the spot, and thus given 
to the romantic dreams and fancies of early life a 
local habitation and a name. Still, trite and worn- 
out as the subject may appear, it is impossible by 
any amount of familiarity to divest it of its undying 



chap, vi.] INTEREST OF THE REGION. 257 

charm ; and those who have visited the scene, so far 
from their interest in it being exhausted, have only- 
been made more enthusiastic in its favour, and 
more anxious to compare or contrast their own 
experience with that of every new traveller who 
writes upon it. To the botanist especially the 
region is exceedingly interesting. In ascending 
the pass he has an opportunity of noticing the 
various types of vegetation that occur in the dif- 
ferent zones of altitude, from the plants of Southern 
Europe in the valleys to the Arctic flora below the 
line of perpetual snow. There are few places where 
so great a variety of Scandinavian forms may be 
gathered as on this crest of the Pennine Alps, 
growing among forms that are peculiar to the 
locality. Even the unscientific traveller is struck 
with their extreme luxuriance and beauty. They 
form an essential feature in the landscape, which 
the most careless will notice and remember with 
pleasure long afterwards, associating the beds of 
lovely Alpine plants with the fresh, bracing air, 
the bright rejoicing waters, and the noble prospects 
of the mountain heights. 

About the beginning of August, two years ago, 
I had the pleasure of visiting this celebrated spot 
in company with two friends. We set out early in 
the morning in a char-a-banc, or native droskey, 
drawn by a mule from the " Hotel Grande-Maison- 
Porte," at Martigny, the Roman Octodurus, and 
the seat of the ancient bishops of Valais. This is a 
low, damp, uninteresting place, much infested with 

S 



258 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

a small, black gnat, whose sting is very painful, 
bred in the marshes of the Rhone. Being a capital 
centre of excursions to Lago Maggiore over the 
Simplon, to Aosta and Turin over the St. Bernard 
pass, and to Chamouni by the Tete-Noire, or the 
Col de Balme, it is exceedingly gay and animated 
every evening during the summer, owing to the 
arrival of tourists, and desolate and deserted every 
morning, owing to their departure. The sun was 
shining with almost tropical heat, rapidly ripening 
the walnuts along the avenues of the town, and the 
grapes hanging in rich profusion on the trellises 
of the houses ; the sky was without a cloud, and 
everything promised a delightful trip. Passing 
through a small unsavoury village called Martigny 
le Bourg, our route crossed the Dranse by a sub- 
stantial bridge ; and at a little distance beyond 
a guide-post indicated to the right the way to 
Chamouni, and to the left to St. Bernard. The 
entrance by the pass of the Dranse is magnificent, 
reminding us, though on a grander scale, of the 
mouth of Glenlyon in Perthshire. Lofty slopes, 
and precipices richly wooded, approached from 
both sides so closely that there was hardly room 
left for the passage of the powerful stream, which, 
turbid with glacier mud, roared and foamed over 
enormous blocks of stone. The road, without para- 
pet or railing, overhung the river, and in one place 
was carried through a tunnel called the Gallerie 
Monaye, upwards of two hundred feet long, cut out 
of the solid rock. We passed through scattered 



vi.] CAREFUL CULTIVATION, 259 

villages sweetly embosomed among walnut arid 
chesnut trees, but presenting many saddening 
signs of the poverty and wretchedness of the 
inhabitants. An unusually large proportion of the 
people were afflicted with goitres, and here and 
there we saw sitting on the thresholds of their 
dirty chalets loathsome cretins, basking in the sun, 
whose short, shambling [figures and unnaturally 
large round heads and leering faces afflicted us 
amid the beauty of nature around like a nightmare. 
The ground was everywhere most carefully culti- 
vated. Every particle of soil among the rocks, 
however scanty or steep, was terraced up with 
walls, and made to yield grass, corn, or potatoes. 
High up on the brink of precipices that seemed 
almost inaccessible, bright green spots indicated 
the laborious care of the peasantry ; and to these, 
as soon as the winter snows disappeared, sheep 
were carried up every year, one by one on men's 
backs, and left there till the end of summer, when 
they were carried down, considerably fattened, in 
the same picturesque fashion. The lower meadows 
by the roadside were exceedingly beautiful, of the 
most vivid green, covered with myriads of purple 
crocuses and scarlet vetches, and murmurous with 
the hum of innumerable grasshoppers. Gay butter- 
flies, and insects of golden and crimson hues, never 
seen in this country, flitted past in the warm sun- 
shine ; and the fragrance of the Arolla pines filled 
all the air with a highly stimulating aromatic balm. 
As it was the festal day of the " Assumption of the 

S 2 



260 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

Virgin," one of the grandest fetes of the Roman 
Catholic Church, groups of peasants, — the men 
dressed in the brown cotton blouses peculiar to the 
district, and the women wearing a curious head- 
dress consisting of a broad tinselled ribbon plaited 
and set on edge round a cap, each carrying her 
prayer-book in her hand, wrapped in a white 
pocket-handkerchief, — passed us on their way to 
the chapel at Martigny. On all sides we noticed 
exceedingly distinct traces of two great natural 
phenomena which had overwhelmed the district, 
separated from each other by thousands of years. 
Almost every exposed rock was polished and 
striated by ancient glaciers ; and the granite 
boulders, which they had brought down with them, 
were seen perched upon the schist and limestone 
precipices hundreds of feet above the river. The 
whole valley from St. Bernard to Martigny, with 
its tributary glens, must have been the channel of 
a vast system of glaciers descending from the crest 
of the Pennine Alps during the glacial epoch, when 
all the glaciers of Europe and Asia were far more 
extensive than they are now. The other pheno- 
menon to which allusion has been made was also 
caused by glacier action, but of a different kind. 
In one of the narrow side gorges of the valley, 
called the Val de Bagne, there is a glacier known 
as the Glacier de Getroz, which hangs suspended 
over a cliff five hundred feet high. The end of this 
glacier is continually breaking off, and falling over 
the precipice into the bottom of the gorge, where 



vi.] INUNDA TION OF DRANSE. 26 1 

the fragments of ice accumulate and form enormous 
heaps. In the year 1818 these fallen masses had 
been piled up to an unparalleled extent, and choked 
up the narrow, vault-like outlet of the gorge. 
Behind this icy dam the water of the east branch 
of the Dranse increased, until at length a lake was 
formed, nearly a mile long, a quarter of a mile wide, 
and about two hundred feet deep. The inhabitants 
of the valley watched anxiously the gradual rise of 
the w r aters, knowing that when the warm season 
should come the icy bank would melt, and the 
reservoir be at once discharged. Many of them 
fled in the spring, with their goods and cattle, to 
the higher pasturages. A tunnel, seven hundred 
feet long, was cut into the ice, which gradually let 
off a considerable part of the water without any 
damage. But a hot June sun and the warmth of 
the water so gnawed into the ice that on the after- 
noon of the 1 6th of the month the barrier burst all 
at once, and a prodigious mass of water, upwards 
of five hundred and thirty millions of cubic feet, 
rushed down the valley with fearful fury, carrying 
everything before it, and marking its course all the 
>way to the lake of Geneva, fifty miles distant, with 
gigantic ruins. Many lives were lost, and property 
to nearly the value of a million sterling was 
destroyed. To prevent a repetition of this awful 
Calamity, for a similar event occurred in 1595, and 
the same cause is still in operation, spring water is 
led by means of a long wooden trough to the dam 
of ice formed by the falling fragments of the 



262 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

glacier ; and the warmth of this water cuts like a 
saw the ice as soon as deposited, and thus cleaves 
a passage for the river and prevents its waters from 
accumulating. The autograph of this tremendous 
inundation was written, like the mystic "Mene, 
mene," of Belshazzar's palace, in the huge stones in 
the bed of the river, and in the gravelly and stony 
spots far up the sides of the valley, mingling with 
the relics of ancient glacier action, but easily 
distinguishable from them. 

Passing through Sembranchier, a picturesque 
village, with the ruins of an enormous castle of the 
Emperor Sigismund on a hill in its vicinity, and 
Orsieres, situated at the junction of the valleys of 
Ferret and Entremont, distinguished by a very 
ancient tower rising high above its curious houses, 
the road ascended by a series of well-executed zig- 
zags through a rich and highly-cultivated country 
to Liddes. Deep down among wild rocks the 
Dranse pursued its turbulent course unseen, reveal- 
ing its presence only by an all-pervading murmur 
in the air. The view extended over an undulating 
upland landscape of green fields, diversified by 
wooden frames for drying the corn, somewhat like 
the curious structures for drying hay to be seen on 
Norwegian mountain farms. The huge summit of 
Mont Velan, 12,000 feet high, formed the most 
conspicuous object on the horizon before us, its 
dark rocks contrasting finely with its dazzling 
snows and the rich fields of deep blue sky above it. 
A cool breeze blew down upon us from the snowy 



vi.] ST PIERRE. 2G3 

heights, and was inexpressibly refreshing after the 
stifling heat of the valley. About four o'clock . in 
the afternoon we came to a strange old village, 
called St. Pierre, — the last on the route, — situated 
on a kind of plateau, about 5,000 feet above the 
level of the sea. It was a very dirty, miserable 
place ; and we were victimized by the innkeeper of 
the Hotel au Dejeuner de Napoleon, having been 
charged fifteen francs for a blue scraggy chicken, 
not much larger than a sparrow, a plate of potatoes 
fried in rancid grease, and a bottle of Beaujolais 
wine as sour as vinegar. A remarkably quaint old 
church, built in the tenth century, still exists in the 
village. A tablet with a Latin inscription by 
Bishop Hugo of Geneva, the founder of the church, 
commemorates a victory obtained by the inhabi- 
tants over the Saracens, who had ravaged the 
district with fire and sword. A Roman milestone 
is also built into the wall of the enclosure near the 
tower. In modern times the place is chiefly 
interesting as being one of the resting-places of 
Napoleon in his passage over the Alps, and the 
birthplace of his famous guide. A little beyond it 
there is a deep gorge with a splendid, full-bodied 
waterfall, which we visited. The sides of the pools 
and the sloping banks were fringed with clusters of 
tall monkshood, whose blue flowers mingled with 
the snowy foam of the water; while the large 
yellow flowers of the Swiss foxglove {Digitalis 
grandiflora) peeped out with a very brilliant 
effect among the bushes. Across the gorge, a 



264 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

frail bridge, with an arched gateway, constructed 
by Charlemagne, gave access to the main road, 
which led through the forest of St. Pierre in the 
Defile de Charreire, and was cut in many places 
out of the solid rock. Below us, at the foot of 
perpendicular precipices several hundred feet in 
depth, the Dranse, still a powerful stream, formed 
innumerable foaming cascades. There was no wall 
or abutment to protect us. The off-hand wheel of 
the conveyance was always within a foot of the 
edge. I was sitting on the side nearest the precipice, 
and often could have easily let fall a stone from 
my hand right down into the river. The least false 
movement on the part of the driver would inevit- 
ably have hurled us over to destruction. And yet 
we went safely and pleasantly along at full speed, 
our hearts now and then, when we came to a more 
trying place than usual, perhaps a little higher than 
their normal position. It was in this defile of Char- 
reire that Napoleon encountered his most formidable 
difficulties. The old road was declared by Mares- 
cat, chief of the engineers, as " barely passable for 
artillery." "It is possible! let us start then!" was 
the heroic reply of his master. It was a favourite 
maxim with him that wherever two men could set 
foot an army had the means of passing ; and he 
acted upon this maxim on this occasion. As it was 
about the end of May, the snows were melting fast, 
and thus greatly increased the dangers and diffi- 
culties of the route. " The artillery carriages were 
taken to pieces and packed on mules ; the ammu- 



vi.] CANTINE DE PROZ. 265 

nition was also thus transported ; whilst the guns 
themselves, placed on the trunks of trees hollowed 
out, were dragged up by main strength, — a hundred 
soldiers being attached to each cannon, for which 
laborious undertaking they received the sum of 
1,200 francs. At the Hospice each soldier partook 
of the hospitality of the brethren." 

In about an hour and a half we came to a solitary 
inn, called the Cantine de Proz, kept by a man of 
the name of Dorset, who is very civil to travellers. 
No other dwelling was in sight. A number of 
diminutive cows wandered about on the short 
smooth turf, bright with the lovely Alpine clover ; 
the sweet tinkling of their bells, combined with the 
monotonous sighing of the infant Dranse, giving us 
a lonely and far-aw T ay feeling, as if we had reached 
the end of the world. A corner of the Glacier de 
Menouve, of dazzling whiteness, appeared in sight, 
far up among stern precipitous rocks, of a peculiarly 
bald and weather-w r orn appearance. Above the 
cantine, a little plain, called the Plan de Proz, about 
5,500 feet above the sea, sloped up, seamed in 
every direction with grey watercourses, but gemmed 
with innumerable brilliant clusters of the snowy 
gentian. Leaving our conveyance at the inn, and 
taking with us the mule and the driver as a guide, 
we set off on foot across the plain, to the entrance 
of a kind of gorge, called the Defile de Marengo, 
which is exceedingly steep and difficult of ascent. 
A considerable stream, confined within narrow 
bounds, roars and foams within a few feet of the 



266 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

pathway, so that in wet weather its swollen waters 
must render the defile impassable. Among the 
rocks, wherever any particles of soil lodged, rich 
cushions of moss spread themselves, wild auriculas 
nestled in the crevices, and large patches of crow- 
berry and blaeberry bushes crept over the boulders. 
These blaeberry bushes fringed the pathway up to 
within a short distance of the Hospice ; and nowhere 
in Scotland have we seen the fruit so plentiful or 
so large and luxurious. Basketfuls could be gathered 
in a few minutes without diverging more than a 
yard or two from our course ; and yet it seems 
never to be touched. The sides of the stream were 
decked with the large woolly leaves and brown 
flowers of the Alpine Tussilago, which takes the 
place at this elevation of the' common butter-bur, 
whose enormous umbrella-like leaves form such a 
picturesque adornment of lowland rivulets. After 
an hour's stiff ascent, we came to two ruinous- 
looking chalets, built of loose stones, one of which 
served as a place of refuge for cattle, while the 
other was the old morgue, now used as a shelter- 
place for travellers, where they wait, if overtaken 
by storms, till the servants of the monastery come 
down with a dog to their rescue, which they do 
every morning when the weather is unusually 
severe. They bring with them on such occasions 
wine and provisions to restore the exhausted and 
half-frozen traveller ; and guided by the faithful 
dogs, who alone know the way, — thirty feet of snow 
being not unfrequently accumulated in the worst 



vi.] THE VALLE Y OF BE A TH. 267 

parts of the pass, — they are all brought safely to 
the hospitable shelter of the convent. From this 
point the defile receives the ominous name of the 
Valley of Death ; and the track is marked by tall, 
black poles, and here and there by a cross, marking 
the scene of some tragic event. Within a short 
distance of the Hospice, an iron cross commemo- 
rates the death of one of the monks who perished 
on that spot by an avalanche in November 1845. 
Between these grim memorials of those to whom 
the place had been indeed the valley of the shadow 
of death we toiled up the rough and arduous 
path, panting and perspiring, greatly aided by 
our alpenstocks. For my own part, I thought 
the way would never end. I turned corner after 
corner of the defile, but still no trace of human 
habitation. My knees were about to give way 
with fatigue, the rarity of the air was making 
itself known to me in thirst and headache, my 
pulse had advanced from 60 beats at Martigny 
to 83 at this elevation, and I would gladly have 
rested awhile. But the shades of night were falling 
fast, so the banner with the strange device had 
still to be unfurled. I had in my own experience 
during this ascent a more vivid conception than I 
could otherwise have realized of the feverish longing 
which the lost wanderer in the snow has for a place 
of refuge and rest. If I, a mere summer tourist, 
bent upon reaching the Hospice only to gratify a 
love of adventure, and to realize a romantic sensa- 
tion, had such a desire, how much more ardent 



268 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 



must be the longing of the poor traveller, overtaken 
by the dreadful tourmente y blinded and benumbed 
by the furious drift, to whom reaching the Hospice 
is a matter of life and death ! At last, at the 
very summit of the pass, I saw the Hospice loom- 
ing above me, its windows glittering in the setting 
sun. Fatigue and weariness all forgotten, I eagerly 
clambered up the remaining part of the ascent, 
along a paved road overhanging a precipice, and in 
a few minutes stood beside the open door. At first 
I could hardly realize the fact that the convent, 
about which I had read so much, which I had 
so often seen in pictures and pictured in dreams, 
was actually before me. It had a very familiar look, 
appearing exactly as I had imagined. I did not 
approach it in the orthodox fashion, — exhausted 
and half-frozen amid the blinding drifts of a snow- 
storm, and dragged in on a dog's back ! On the 
contrary, the evening was calm and summer-like ; 
the surrounding peaks retained the last crimson 
blush of the exquisitely beautiful abend-gluhen, or 
after-glow of sunset ; the little lake beside the 
convent mirrored the building on its tranquil bosom ; 
the snow had retreated from the low grounds, and 
only lingered on the lesser heights in the form of 
hardened patches wedged in the shady recesses of 
the rocks. I could not have seen the place under 
more favourable auspices ; and yet, nevertheless, 
the scene was inexpressibly forlorn and melancholy. 
There was an air of utter solitude and dreariness 
about it which I have never seen equalled, and 



VI.] THE BUILDING. 269 



which oppressed me with a nameless sadness. There 
was no colour in the landscape, — no cheerful green, 
or warm brown, or shining gold, such as relieves 
even the most sterile moorland scenery in this 
country. Everything was grey and cold — the 
building was grey, the rocks were grey, the lake 
was grey, the vegetation was grey, the sky was 
grey ; and when the evening glow vanished, the 
lofty peaks around assumed a livid ghastly hue, 
which even the sparkling of their snowy drapery in 
the first beams of the moon could not enliven. Not 
a tree, not a shrub, not even a heather bush, was in 
sight. It seemed as if Nature, in this remote and 
elevated region, were dead, and that I was gazing 
upon its shrouded corpse in a chamber draperied 
with the garments of woe. 

The Monastery itself is a remarkably plain build- 
ing, destitute of all architectural pretensions. It is 
in fact a huge barn, built entirely for use and not 
for elegance. It consists of two parts — one fitted 
up as a chapel, and the other containing the cells 
of the monks, and rooms for the accommodation of 
travellers, divided from each other by whitewashed 
wooden partitions. It is built in the strongest 
manner, — the walls being very thick, and the win- 
dows numerous, small, and doubly-glazed, so as 
most effectually to withstand the fearful storms of 
winter. There is a small separate building on the 
other side of the path, called the Hotel de St. Louis, 
which is used as a granary, and as a sleeping-place 
for beggars and tramps. It also provides a refuge 



270 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

in the case of fire, from which the Hospice has 
frequently suffered severely, being on two occasions 
nearly burnt to the ground. Ladies were formerly 
entertained in this building, as it was deemed out 
of place to bring them into the Monastery. But 
these scruples have now been overcome, and ladies 
are freely admitted to all parts of the place, and 
allowed to sleep in the ordinary rooms. The monks 
of the present day have not the same dread of the 
fair sex which their patron saint is said to have 
cherished. Indeed, the good fathers are particularly 
delicate and profuse in their attentions to ladies, 
giving to them the best places at table, and serving 
them with the choicest viands. In fact, the com- 
pany of ladies is one of the best letters of introduc- 
tion that a party can bring with them ; for though 
the monks are proverbially kind and attentive to all 
persons without distinction, and especially conside- 
rate, from a sympathetic feeling, towards bachelors, 
yet if they have a warmer place than another in 
their hearts, it is reserved for lady travellers ; and 
who would blame them for it ? 

The St. Bernard Hospice is the highest per- 
manent habitation in Europe, being 8,200 feet 
above the level of the sea, or nearly twice the 
height of Ben Nevis. There are, indeed, several 
chalets in the Alps that are still higher, but 
they are tenanted only during the three summer 
months, when the people employ themselves in 
tending goats and manufacturing cheeses from 
their milk. About the end of September they 



vi.] SE VERIT Y OF CLIMA TE. 271 



are deserted, and the shepherds descend to the 
valleys. The severity of the climate at the Hos- 
pice is so great, that the snow never leaves the 
level ground for nine months in the year. Snow 
showers are almost always falling, even in the 
mildest weather ; and there are scarcely three suc- 
cessive days in the whole twelve months free from 
blinding mists and biting sleet. The mean tem- 
perature is 30 Fahr., exactly that of the South 
Cape of Spitzbergen. In summer it never exceeds 
48 , even on the hottest day ; and in winter, parti- 
cularly in February, the thermometer not unfre- 
quently falls 40 below zero, — a degree of cold 
of which we in this country can form no con- 
ception. What greatly increases the severity of the 
climate is the fact that the Hospice is situated in a 
gorge pierced nearly from north-east to south-west, 
in the general direction of the Alps, and conse- 
quently in the course of the prevailing winds; so 
that, even in the height of July, the least breath of 
the bise, or north wind, sweeping over the lofty 
snow region, always brings with it a degree of cold 
. extremely uncomfortable. The effect of this bitter 
Arctic climate upon the monks, as might be ex- 
. pected, is extremely disastrous'. The strongest 
I constitution soon gives way under it. Headaches, 
. pains in the chest and liver, are sadly common. 
Even the dogs themselves, hardy though they are, 
soon become rheumatic and die. Seven years is 
the longest span of their life, and the breed is with 
the utmost difficulty kept up. All the monks are 



2 72 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

young men, none of them having the grey hair, and 
long venerable beard, and feeble stooping gait, 
which are usually associated with the monastic 
fraternity. In fact, the intensity of the climate pre- 
vents any one from reaching old age. The prior, 
M. Joseph de 1'Eglise, has been longer in the con- 
vent than any other monk, having spent there con- 
siderably more than the half of his life. But though 
only forty-six years of age, he looked a withered, 
pinched old man, suffering constantly and acutely 
from the disorders of the place, yet bearing his ill- 
nesses in patient uncomplaining silence, and going 
about his work as though nothing were the matter 
with him. The monks begin their noviciate, which 
usually lasts about fourteen years, at the age of 
eighteen ; but few of them live to complete it. The 
first year of residence is the least trying, as the 
stock of health and energy they have brought with 
them enables them successfully to resist the devital- 
izing influence of the monotonous life and the 
severe climate ; but every succeeding year they 
become less and less able to bear the cold and pri- 
vations, and they go about the convent the ghosts 
of their former selves, blue and thin and shivering. 
Before they have succumbed, they go down to the 
sick establishments in the milder climate of Mar- 
tigny or Aosta, or they serve as parish priests in the 
different valleys around. But, in many cases, this 
remedy comes too late. They perish at their posts, 
literally starved to death. The annals of the con- 
vent contain many sad records of such devotion; 



vi.] WELCOME. ■ 273 

and they thrill the heart with sympathy and 
admiration. 

We mounted the stair in front of the door 
of the Hospice, and entered, preceded by our 
guide. In the wall of the vestibule we noticed a 
large black marble tablet, bearing the following 
inscription in gilt letters : " Napoleoni I. Francorum 
Imperatori, semper augusto Reipublicae Valesianae 
restauratori, semper Optimo ^Egyptiaco, bis Italico, 
semper invicto, in monte Jovis et Sempronii semper 
memorando respublica Valesiee grata, 2 Dec. 1804." 
At the top of a short flight of steps, our guide rang 
a large bell twice, and immediately a door opened 
and a polite and gentlemanly monk appeared, 
dressed in a long black coat with white facings, 
and with a high dark cap, similarly decorated, 
upon his head. He welcomed us with much polite- 
ness, and beckoning us to follow him, conducted 
us through a long vaulted corridor, dimly lighted 
by a solitary lamp, where the clang of an iron gate 
shutting behind us, and the sound of our own 
footsteps on the stone floor, produced a hollow 
reverberation. He brought us into a narrow room, 
with one deeply-recessed window at the end, con- 
taining three beds simply draped with dark crimson 
4 curtains, and all the materials for a comfortable 
toilet. There are about eighty beds for travellers 
of better condition in the monastery, and accom- 
modation for between two and three hundred 
persons of all classes at one time. Speedily re- 
moving our travel-stains, we rejoined our host in 

T 



2 74 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

the corridor, who showed us into the general 
reception room, where we found lights and a 
smouldering wood fire upon the hearth. The 
walls of the room, lined with pine wainscot, were 
hung with engravings and paintings, the gifts of 
grateful travellers ; while in one corner was a 
piano, presented by the Prince of Wales shortly 
after his visit to the Hospice. Two long tables 
occupied the sides, covered with French newspapers 
and periodicals, among which we noticed several 
recent numbers of Galignani and the Illustrated 
London News. We went instinctively at once to 
the fire, but found it monopolized by a party of 
Italians and Germans, who showed no disposition to 
admit us within the magic circle. We elbowed our 
way in, however, and had the satisfaction of crouch- 
ing over the smouldering logs with the rest, and 
admiring the beautifully-carved marble mantelpiece. 
One of the monks very considerately came in with 
an armful of wood and a pair of bellows, and, reple- 
nishing the fire, speedily produced a cheerful blaze, 
which thawed us all into good-humour and genial 
chattiness. We felt the cold exceedingly ; the 
thermometer in one of the windows of the room 
registering six degrees below the freezing point. 
At Martigny, in the morning, the thermometer 
indicated about eighty degrees in the shade ; so 
that in less than twelve hours we had passed from 
a tropical heat sufficient to blister the skin exposed 
to it to an Arctic cold capable of benumbing it 
with frost-bites. The rooms of the convent are 



W«] SCARCITY OF FUEL. 2 75 

heated -all the year round; and at what an expense 
and trouble it may be judged, when the fact is 
mentioned, that every particle of the fuel consumed 
is brought on the backs of mules over the Col de 
Fenetre, a continuous ascent of nine thousand feet 
from the convent forest in the valley of Ferret' 
twelve miles distant. Water, too, boils at this 
elevation at about 187 Fahr., or twenty-five degr-es 
sooner than the normal point ; and in consequence 
of this it takes five hours to cook a piece of meat 
which would have taken only three hours to get 
ready down in the valleys, and a most inordinate 
quantity of fuel is consumed in the kitchen during 
the process. The most essential element of life in 
this terrible climate is yet, sad to say, too rare and 
precious to be used in sufficient quantity. What 
would not the poor monks give for a roaring 
blazing coal fire, such as cheers in almost limitless 
measure our homes on the winter nights, when 
they sit shivering over the dim glimmer of a wood 
fire carefully doled out in ounces ! 

Having arrived too late for supper, which is 
(usually served at six, the dinner hour being at 
noon, an impromptu meal was provided for us 
and the other travellers who were in the same 
[position. Though hastily got up, the cooking of 
it would have done credit to the best hotel in 
'Martigny. It consisted of excellent soup, roast 
chamois, and boiled rice and milk, with prunes. 
A bottle of very superior red wine, which was said 
jto be a present from the King of Sardinia, Mas put 

T 2 



276 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LA NDS. [chap. 

beside each person ; and a small dessert of nuts 
and dried fruits wound up the entertainment. 
The Clavandier presided, and by his courteous 
manners made every one feel perfectly at home. 
The conversation was carried on exclusively in 
French, which is the only language spoken by the 
fathers. Coming in contact during the summer 
months with travellers from all parts of the world, 
and devoting the long winter to hard study, in 
which they are helped by the superior, who is a 
man of great learning, the monks are exceedingly 
intelligent, and well acquainted with the leading 
events of the day, in which they take a deep in- 
terest. Some of them are proficients in music ; 
others display a taste for natural history ; and 
they all combine various accomplishments with 
their special study of theology and the patristic 
literature. They are also very liberal in their 
views, having none of the bigotry and [intolerance 
which we usually associate with the monastic 
order, and which is so conspicuous in the cures 
of the Papal Swiss cantons. A striking ex- 
ample of this was related to us at the time. 
A week before our arrival, an Episcopalian clergy- 
man, happening to be staying with a party of 
Englishmen in the Hospice on a Sunday, asked 
permission of the superior to conduct a religious 
service with his countrymen in the refectory. 
This was not only granted with the utmost cor- 
diality, but the chapel itself was offered to him 
for the purpose, which offer, however, he declined 



VI.] PROVISIONS OF HOSPICE. 277 

in the same spirit in which it was made, unwilling 
to trespass to that extent upon their catholicity. 

Conversing pleasantly on various subjects with 
our host and the guests around, we did ample 
justice to the good cheer. Fridays and Saturdays, 
we understood, were fast days ; but though the 
brethren fasted, no restriction was put during 
those days upon the diet of travellers — the table 
being always simply but amply furnished. The 
task of purveying for the Hospice, which falls to 
the Clavandier, is by no means an easy one, when 
it is considered that upwards of sixteen thousand 
travellers, with appetites greatly sharpened by the 
keen air, are entertained every year; and not a 
single scrap of anything that can be eaten grows 
on the St. Bernard itself. All the provisions, 
which must consist of articles that will keep, are 
brought from Aosta, and stored in the magazines 
of the convent. During the months of June, July, 
and August, when the paths are open, about 
twenty horses and mules are employed every day 
in carrying in food and fuel for the long winter. 
The country people also bring up gifts of cheese, 
butter, and potatoes, in gratitude for the kind 
services of the monks. Several cows are kept in 
the convent pastures on the Italian side, and their 
milk affords a grateful addition to the food of the 
monks. During winter they have no fresh meal 
at all, being obliged to subsist upon salt beef and 
mutton, usually killed and preserved in September ; 
and what is still worse, they have no vegetables. 



2 78 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

all attempts at gardening in the place having 
proved abortive; so that not unfrequently scurvy- 
is added to their sufferings. 

After an hour or two's chat around the fire, 
and a very cursory but most interesting inspec- 
tion of the pile of visitors' books, which contain 
many celebrated names, and a great deal that 
is curious and admirable in the way of com- 
ment upon the place, our host bade us all good- 
night, and I too was very glad to retire. A 
bright moon shone in through the curtainless 
window of my bedroom, and lay in bars on the 
bare floor. Outside the view was most romantic, 
the moonshine investing everything, snowy peaks, 
jagged rocks, and the bare terraces around, with 
lights and shadows of the strangest kind. A pale 
blue sky, spiritual almost in its purity and trans- 
parency, in which the stars glimmered with a cold 
clear splendour, bent over the wild spot ; and the 
loneliness and silence were unlike in their depth 
and utterness anything I had ever before ex- 
perienced. Snatching, like Gray's schoolboy, a 
few minutes of fearful joy from the contemplation 
of the weird scene, worn-out nature summoned me 
to bed. There was a perfect pile of blankets and 
a heavy down quilt above me, under which I lay 
squeezed like a cheese in a cheese-press, but I 
utterly failed to get warm. Sleep would not be 
wooed. I lay and watched the shadows on the 
floor, and thought of many unutterable things, and i 
wondered at the strange vicissitudes of life, which ij 



vi.] WALK BESIDE LAKE. 279 

so often place us unexpectedly in situations that 
were the ideals of our youth. About five o'clock 
in the morning, just as the grey dawn was steal- 
ing in, I was thoroughly rousefl from a dozing, 
semi-torpid state, into which I had sunk, by the 
ringing of the convent bell for matins ; and shortly 
afterwards the rich tones of an organ, mellowed 
by the distance, pealed from the chapel with 
an indescribably romantic effect. I arose and 
dressed with chattering teeth, and then went out 
into the raw air. I walked beside the small, 
desolate-looking lake beside the Hospice, where 
never fish leaped up, and on which no boat has 
ever sailed. Being the highest sheet of water in 
Europe, fed by the melting of the snows, it is 
frequently frozen all the summer ; and when 
thaw^ed, it lies " like a spot of ink amid the snow." 
Passing a pillar at the end of the lake, and a 
curious heraldic stone beside a spring, I had 
crossed the boundary between Switzerland and 
Piedmont, and was now in Italy. Climbing up 
the bare rocks to a kind of esplanade, near a tall 
cross inserted in a massive pedestal of chlorite- 
schist, and bearing the inscription, "Deo Optimo 
Maximo," which guides the traveller from the 
Italian side of the pass to the convent, I sat 
down and surveyed the scene. The snowy dome 
of Mont Velan filled up the western horizon. On 
my left the gorge was shut in by the rugged range 
of Mont Mort, Mont Chenaletta, and the Pic de 
Dronaz. Below me I could see, through the 



280 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

writhing mist, glimpses of the green corrie, called 
"La Vacherie," where the cattle of the Hospice 
grazed under the care of a few peasants, whose 
wretched chalets were the only habitations : while 
beyond, to the southward, rose up a strange Sinai- 
like group of reddish serrated rocks, entirely 
destitute of vegetation, with wreaths of dark cloud 
floating across their faces, or clinging to their 
ledges, and greatly increasing their savage gloom. 
An air of utter desolation and loneliness pervaded 
the whole scene. No sounds broke the stillness, 
save such as were wonderfully congenial with the 
spirit of the place, the sighing of the wind as it 
ruffled the surface of the lake, the occasional tinkle 
of the cow-bells far below, the deep baying of the 
St. Bernard dogs, or the murmur of a torrent far 
off, that came faint and continuous as music heard 
in ocean shells. 

I had ample evidence around — if my drip- 
ping nose and icy hands did not convince me — 
of the extreme severity of the climate. The 
vegetation was exclusively hyperborean, exactly 
similar in type to that which flourishes around 
the grim shores of Baffin's Bay. I had gathered 
the same species on the summits of the highest 
Scottish mountains, and afterwards on the Dovre- 
fjeld in Norway. The reindeer moss of Lap- 
land whitened the ground here and there, in- 
terspersed with a sulphur-coloured lichen which 
grows sparingly on the tops of the Cairngorm 
range. Large patches of black Tripe de Roche — 



VI.] FLORA OF THF PASS. 281 

the lichen which Sir John Franklin and his party, 
in the Polar regions, were once, in the absence of 
all other food, compelled to eat, along with the 
remains of their old shoes and leather belts — 
clung to the stones, looking like fragments of 
charred parchment ; while an immense quantity 
of other well-known Arctic lichens and mosses 
covered the level surface of each exposed rock, 
as with a crisp shaggy mantle, that crunched 
under the foot. There were no tufts of grass, no 
green thing whatever. Tiny grey saxifrages, 
covered with white flowers, grew in thick clumps, 
as if crowding together for warmth, along with 
brilliant little patches of gentian, whose depth 
and tenderness of blue were indescribable, and 
tufts of Aretias and Silenes, starred with a pro- 
fusion of the most exquisite rosy flowers, as 
though the crimson glow of sunset had settled 
permanently upon them. The Alpine forget-me- 
not, only found in this country on the summits of 
the Breadalbane mountains, cheered me with its 
bright blue eyes everywhere ; while the u Alpine 
lady's mantle " spread its grey satiny leaves, along 
with the Arctic willow, the favourite food of the 
chamois, over the stony knolls, as if in pity for 
their nakedness. I found a few specimens of 
the beautiful lilac Soldanella alpina, and also 
several tufts of the glacier ranunculus, on a kind 
of moraine at the foot of a hardened snow-wreath. 
The ranunculus was higher up, and grew on the 
loose debris, without a particle of verdure around 



282 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

it. It seemed like the last effort of expiring nature 
to fringe the limit of eternal snow with life. Its 
foliage and flowers had a peculiarly wan and woe- 
begone look. Its appeal was so sorrowful, as it 
looked up at me, with its bleached colourless 
petals, faintly tinged with a hectic flush, that I 
could not help sympathising with it, as though it 
were a sensitive creature. But the flower that 
touched me most was our own beloved "Scottish 
blue-bell." I was surprised and delighted be- 
yond measure to see it hanging its rich peal of 
bells in myriads from the crevices of the rocks 
around, swaying with every breeze. It tolled in 
fairy tones the music of " Home, sweet home." 
It was like meeting a friend in a far country. 
It was the old familiar blue-bell, but it was 
changed in some respects. Its blossom was far 
larger, and of a deep purple tinge, instead of the 
clear pale blue colour which it has in this country. 
It afforded a striking example of the changes 
which the same plant undergoes when placed 
in different circumstances. I could see in its 
altered features modifications to suit a higher 
altitude and a severer climate. In the Alps all 
the plants have blossoms remarkably large in pro- 
portion to their foliage, and their colours are 
unusually intensified, in order that they may get 
all the advantage of the brief but ardent sunshine, 
so as to ripen their seed as rapidly as possible. 
And this unprincipled little blue-bell in the vicinity 
of the Monastery had exchanged the clear blue 



vi.] SCOTTISH BLUE-BELL. 283 

of the Scottish Covenanter for the purple and fine 
linen of the Romish hierarchy, and was just like 
many others, animals as well as plants, doing in 
Rome as they do in Rome ! In this desolate, 
nature-forsaken spot, where an eternal winter 
reigns, the presence of these beautiful Alpine 
flowers, doing their best to make the place cheery, 
brought a peculiar indescribable feeling of spring 
to my heart, reminded me irresistibly of the season 
which is so sad amid all its beauty and promise 
— the first trembling out of the dark — the first 
thrill of life that comes to the waiting earth — and 
then the first timid peering forth of green on hedge 
and bank ; and, like Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," 
I said : 

" Oh, happy living things ! no tongue 
Their beauty might declare ; 
A spring of love gushed from my heart, 
And I blessed them unaware." 

It is impossible to gaze on the St. Bernard pass 
without feelings of the deepest interest. It stands 
as a link in the chain that connects ancient and 
modern history — departed dynasties and systems 
of religion with modern governments and fresh 
creeds ; and in this part the continuity has never 
been broken. Bare and bleak as is the spot, it is a 
palimpsest crowded with relics of different epochs 
and civilizations, the one covering but not oblite- 
rating the other. Every step you take you set 
your foot upon " some reverend history." Thought, 
like the electric spark, rapidly traverses the 
thousand historical links of the chain of memory. 



284 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [c hap. 

You feel as if in the crowded valley in the vision 
of Mirza. All the nations of the earth — Druids, 
Celts, Romans, Saracens, French, Italians — seem 
to pass in solemn file, a dim and ghostly band, 
before your fancy's eye. Names that have left an im- 
perishable wake behind them — Csesar,Charlemagne, 
Canute, Francis I., Napoleon Buonaparte — have 
'traversed that pass. Europe, Africa, and Asia 
have poured their wild hordes through that narrow 
defile. The spot on which the convent is erected 
was held sacred and oracular from time immemorial. 
Like the Tarpeian rock and the site of ancient 
Rome, like the stern solitudes of Sinai and Horeb, 
it had a religio loci and a consecrated shrine from 
the remotest antiquity. The weird, wild aspect of 
the place gave it an air of terror, and naturally 
associated it with the presence of some mysterious 
supernatural being. On a little piece of level 
ground near the lake, called the Place de Jupiter, 
on which the ruinous foundations of an ancient 
Roman temple may still be seen, a rude altar, 
built of rough blocks of stone, was erected three 
thousand years ago, and sacrifices offered on it to 
Pen, the god of the mountains, from whom the 
whole great central chain of Switzerland received 
the name of Pennine Alps. The custom of build- 
ing cairns on the highest points of our own hills 
is supposed to have been derived from the worship 
of this divinity, which seems at one time to have 
spread over the whole of Europe. The names of 
many of the Highland mountains bear significant 



vi.] PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS. 285 

traces of it. Ben Nevis means " Hill of heaven," 
and Ben Ledi signifies " Hill of God," having near 
the summit some large upright stones, which in all 
probability formed a shrine of the god Pen, whose 
Gaelic equivalent, as Beinn or Ben, has been be- 
stowed on every conspicuous summit. Who the 
primitive people were that first erected the rude 
altars on the St. Bernard pass to their tutelary 
deity, we know not. They may have been allied 
to those strange Lacustrines who studded the lakes 
of Switzerland and Italy with their groups of 
dwellings, at the time that Abraham was journeying 
to Canaan, and whose relics, recently discovered, 
are exciting so much interest among archaeologists. 
They were no doubt Celtic tribes ; but, as Niebuhr 
says, " the narrow limits of history embrace only 
the period of their decline as a nation." The few 
fragments that are left of their language, like the 
waves of the ancient ocean, have a mysterious 
murmur of their own, which we can never clearly 
understand. 

For hundreds of years this unknown people 
worshipped their god, and held possession of their 
territories undisturbed; but the day came when 
they were compelled to yield to a foreign invader, 
who fabricated his weapons of iron, and wielded 
them with a stronger arm. Rome had established 
a universal supremacy, and sent its conquering 
legions over the whole of Europe. The stupendous 
barrier of the Alps offered no obstruction. Through 
its passes and valleys, led on by Caesar Augustus 



286 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 



in person, they poured like an irresistible torrent, 
washing away all traces of the former peoples. 
They demolished the old Druidic altar on the 
summit of the St. Bernard, and erected on its site 
a temple dedicated to Jupiter Penninus, while the 
whole range was called Mons Jovis, a name, under 
the corrupt form of Mont Joux, which it retained 
until comparatively recent times. After this the 
pass became one of the principal highways from 
Rome to the rich and fertile territories beyond 
the Alps. A substantial Roman road, well paved, 
was constructed with infinite pains and skill over 
the mountain, the remains of which may still be 
seen near the plain of Jupiter. It was used for 
centuries; and Roman consul and private soldier 
alike paused at the simple shrine of Jupiter Pen- 
ninus, and left their offerings there, in gratitude for 
the protection afforded them. A large number of 
Roman coins, bronze medals, and fragments of 
votive brass tablets has been found on this spot, 
and are now deposited in the small museum of the 
convent adjoining the refectory. In the fifth cen- 
tury, the barbarian hordes of Goths under Alaric, 
of Huns under Attila, and of Vandals under 
Genseric, swept over the pass to subdue Italy and 
take possession of Rome. From that time, no 
event of importance, with the exception of the 
passage of the Lombards in 547, occurred in con- 
nexion with this spot, until Bernhard, who is 
supposed by some to have given his name to the 
pass, uncle of Charlemagne, marched a large army 



vi.] HISTORIC A L A SSO CIA TIONS. 2 8 \ 



over it in 773, in his famous expedition against 
Astolphus, the last Lombard sovereign but one. 
Charlemagne himself afterwards recrossed it at the 
head of his victorious troops, after conquering 
Didier, the last sovereign of Upper Italy. Then 
came Bernard de Menthon, in the year 962, and, 
abolishing the last remains of Pagan worship, 
founded the Hospice which has received his name, 
and erected the first Christian altar. After this 
period, as Mr. King, in his delightful book, " The 
Italian Valleys of the Alps," informs us, the Sara- 
cens ravaged the convent, and destroyed its records 
by fire, and were in turn attacked and repulsed by 
the Normans. Humbert " the white-handed " led 
over the pass an army in 1034, to join Conrad in 
the conquest of Burgundy ; and a part of the army 
of Frederic Barbarossa crossed in 1166, under the 
command of Berthold de Zahringen. u Pilgrims 
bound to Rome frequented it, travelling in large 
caravans for mutual protection from the brigands 
who infested it after the Saracen invasion ; and we 
find our own King Canute, himself a pilgrim to the 
! tomb of St. Peter's, by his representations to the 
Pope and the Emperor Adolphus on behalf of his 
English pilgrim subjects, obtaining the extirpation 
of those lawless bands, and the free and safe use of 
'the pass." The present building was erected about 
the year 1680, its predecessor having been burnt to 
the ground. It is impossible to enumerate within 
our narrow limits all the remarkable historical 
events which are connected with this place, from 



288 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [CHAP. 

the February of the year 59, when Caecina, the 
Roman general, marched over it with the cohorts 
recalled from Britain, through a snow-storm in 
February, to the spring of the year 1800, when 
Napoleon crossed it with an army of 80,000 men 
and 58 field-pieces on his way to the famous battle- 
field of Marengo. There are few spots in the 
world that have witnessed so many changes and re- 
volutions, few spots which have been trodden by 
so many human feet ; and I do not envy the man 
who can gaze upon the narrow path that skirts the 
lake from the Hospice calm and unmoved, when 
he thinks of the myriads of his fellow-creatures, 
from the greatest names in all history down to the 
lowest and most obscure, who, age after age, have 
disturbed the stern silence of these rocks, and who 
have now all alike gone down into undistinguishable 
dust. Methinks the history of this little footpath 
is a commentary upon the nothingness of human 
pride, more impressive than all that poetry has 
ever sung or philosophy taught ! 

A little way beyond the Hospice, on a slightly 
rising ground, is a low building of one storey, built 
in the rudest manner, and with the roughest mate- 
rials. It is covered with a grey-slated roof ; and in 
the wall of the gable which fronts you there is a 
narrow iron grating, through which the light shines 
into the interior. You look in, and never till your 
dying day will you forget the ghastly spectacle 
that then meets your eye. It haunted me like a 
dreadful nightmare long afterwards. This is the 



VI.] THE MORGUE. 289 

famous Morgue, or dead-house, of which all the 
world has heard, and which every one visiting the 
convent, whose nerves are sufficiently strong, makes 
a special point of seeing. I could almost have 
wished, however, that my curiosity had been less 
keen ; for it is not pleasant to hang up in the 
gallery of one's memory a picture like that. And 
yet it does one good to see it. It softens the heart 
with pity ; it conveys, in a more solemn form than 
we are accustomed to read it, the lesson of mortality ; 
and it gives us a better idea than we could other- 
wise have formed of the dangers and sufferings 
which have often to be encountered in the winter 
passage of these mountains, and the noble work 
which the monks of St. Bernard perform. It was 
indeed a Golgotha, forcibly reminding me of Eze- 
kiel's vision of the valley of dry bones. Skulls, 
ribs, vertebrae, and other fragments of humanity, 
with the flesh long ago wasted away from them, 
blanched by sun and frost, lay here and there in 
heaps on the floor. As my eye got accustomed to 
the obscurity of the place, I noticed beyond this 
mass of miscellaneous bones, separated by a low 
wall which did not obstruct the view, an extraordi- 
nary group of figures. These were the bodies 
found entire of those who had perished in the 
winters' snow-storms. Some were lying prostrate, 
others were leaning against the rough wall, the dim, 
uncertain light imparting to their faces a strange 
and awful expression of life. Three figures espe- 
cially attracted and riveted my attention. In the 

U 



290 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

right-hand corner there was a tall spectre fixed in 
an upright attitude, with its skeleton arms out- 
stretched, as if supplicating for the aid that never 
came, and its eyeless sockets glaring as if with 
a fearful expression. For years it had stood 
thus without any perceptible change. In another 
corner there was a figure kneeling upon the 
floor, muffled in a thick dark cloak, with a blue 
worsted cuff on the left wrist. No statue of the 
Laocoon ever told its tale of suffering more elo- 
quently than did that shrivelled corpse. He was 
an honest and industrious workman, a native of 
Martigny. He set out early one December morn- 
ing from that town, intending to go over into Italy 
in search of employment. He got safely and com- 
fortably as far as the Cantine de Proz, where he 
halted all night. Next morning he set out through 
the defile leading up to the Hospice. The weather 
was at first favourable, but he had not proceeded 
far when dark clouds speedily covered the sky from 
end to end, and the fearful guxen, which always 
rages most violently in the Alpine passes, broke 
out in all its fury. He had doubtless fought against 
it with all his energy, but in vain. He was found, 
not three hundred yards from the convent door, 
buried among the deep snow, frozen in the attitude 
in which he still appeared, with his knees bent, and 
his head thrown back in hopeless exhaustion and 
despair. But the saddest of all the sad sights of 
the Morgue is the corpse of a woman lying huddled 
up at the foot of the last-mentioned figure, dressed 



J 



vi.] DEAD MOTHER AND CHILD. 291 



in dark rags. In her arms she holds a bundle, 
which you are told is a baby ; and her withered 
face bends over it with a fond expression which 
death and decay have not been able to obliterate. 
The light shines full on her quiet features, which 
are no more ruffled by earthly pain. You cannot 
fail to see that she had made every effort to pre- 
serve the life of the baby to the last moment, for 
most of her own scanty clothing is drawn up and 
wrapt round its tiny form, leaving her own limbs 
exposed to the blast. Oh, sacred mystery of 
mother's love, stronger than pain, more enduring 
than death ! But alas ! in vain was its self-sacri- 
ficing tenderness here. The weary feet could no 
longer bear the precious burden over the wild, 
and sinking in the fatal sleep, the snow drifted over 
them, fold by fold, silent and swift, and the place 
that knew them once knew them no more for ever : 
the wind passed over it, and it was gone. They 
found the hapless pair in the following spring, when 
the snows had melted away ; and they bore them 
tenderly and sadly to this last resting-place. No 
one came to claim them. Where the poor woman 
came from, what was her name, no one ever knew ; 
and in this heart-touching pathos of mystery and 
death she awaits the coming of that other and 
brighter spring that shall melt even the chill 
of the tomb. 

It is indeed a strange place, that Morgue ! All 
its ghastly tenants perished in the same dreadful 
(way, — the victims of the storm-fiend. Side by side 

U 2 



292 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 



they repose, so cold, so lonely, so forsaken ; with 
no earth to cover them ; no token of love from 
those who were nearest and dearest ; no flower to 
bloom over their dust ; not even one green blade of 
grass to draw down the sunshine and the dew of 
heaven to their dark charnel-house. Traveller after 
traveller from the ends of the earth comes and 
looks in with shuddering dread through the grating 
on the pitiable sight, and then goes away, perhaps 
a sadder and a wiser man. For my own part I 
could not resist the tender impulse, which moved 
me to gather a small nosegay of gentians and blue- 
bells, and throw it in, as an offering of pity, to the 
poor deserted and forgotten dead. It is impossible 
to dig a grave in this spot, for the hard rock comes 
everywhere to the surface, and but the thinnest 
sprinkling of mould rests upon it, hardly sufficient 
to maintain the scanty vegetation. This sterile 
region refuses even a grave to those who die there ! 
So cold and dry is the air, that the corpses in the 
Morgue do not decompose in the same way that 
they do at lower elevations. They wither and 
collapse into mummies, embalmed by the air, like 
the dried bodies preserved in the catacombs of 
Palermo,— and for years they undergo no change, 
— at last falling to pieces, and strewing the ground 
with their fragments. Within the last twelve years 
no less than sixteen persons have perished in the 
snow. Some five or six years ago, two of the 
monks went out with a couple of servants to search 
for a man who was supposed to have lost himself t 



VI ST. BERNARD DOGS. 



293 



in the mountains. They were scarcely fifty p 
away from the Hospice, when an immense ava- 
lanche fell from the side of Mont Chenaletta, and 
buried the whole party under eighteen feet of snow. 
The dreadful catastrophe was seen from the convent 
door, but the monks were utterly powerless to render 
help. When rescued, the party were all dead. 
The number of accidents on the St. Bernard pas, 
has greatly diminished of late years ; and now the 
services of the monks in winter are principally 
required to nurse poor travellers exhausted by the 
difficulties of the ascent, or who have been frost- 
bitten. Returning from my morning walk, I saw 
the famous marons, or St. Bernard dogs, playing 
about the convent door. There were five of them, 
massively built creatures, of a brown colour, — very 
like Newfoundland dogs, only larger and more 
powerful. The stock is supposed to have come 
originally from the Pyrenees. The services they 
have rendered in rescuing travellers are incalculable. 
A whole book might easily be filled with interest- 
ing adventures of which they w T ere the heroes. In 
the Museum at Berne I saw the stuffed body of 
the well-known dog " Barry," which is said to have 
i saved the lives of no less than forty persons. The 
huge creatures were fond of being caressed ; and 
one of them ran after my companion, as he was 
going up the hill-side by a wrong path, and pulled 
him back by the coat-tail ! 

After a substantial breakfast, we paid a visit U) 
the chapel to deposit our alms in the alms-box 



294 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

though the monks make no charge for their hos- 
pitality, or even give the least hint of a donation, 
there is a box placed in the chapel for the benefit 
of the poor, and to this fund every traveller should 
contribute, at the very least, what the same ac- 
commodation would have cost him at an hotel. 
It is to be feared, however, that the great majority 
contribute nothing at all. Not one of the company 
who supped and breakfasted with us approached 
the chapel, having skulked away as soon as they 
could decently take leave ; and yet they were 
bedizened with gold chains and jewellery of a costly 
description. There w r as one Scotchman present 
who carried out his sound Protestant principles at 
the expense of the poor monks. He was a very 
thin, wiry man, but he ate an enormous supper and 
breakfast. He drank a bottle of wine at each meal, 
and helped himself most largely to everything on 
the table. He took what would have sufficed for 
four ordinary men, and, to our intense disgust, he 
rubbed down his stomach complacently in the 
morning ere departing, and said, in the hearing of 
all, that " he had made up his mind to put nothing 
in the alms-box, lest he should countenance Popery!" 
The expenses of the establishment are very heavy, 
while the funds to meet them have been decreasing. 
Formerly the convent was the richest in Europe, 
possessing no less than eighty benefices. But 
Charles Emmanuel III. of Sardinia, falling into a 
dispute with the Cantons of Switzerland about the 
nomination of a provost, sequestrated the posses- 



vi.] HOSPICE CHAPEL. 295 



sions of the monks, leaving them only a small 
estate in the Valais and in the Canton de Vaud. 
The French and Italian governments give an annual 
subsidy of a thousand pounds, while another thou- 
sand is raised by the gifts of travellers, and by 
collections made in Switzerland, — Protestants con- 
tributing as freely as Roman Catholics. Notwith- 
standing their comparative poverty, however, the 
monks are still as lavish and hospitable as ever, up 
to their utmost means. As it was the feast of 
the Assumption of the Virgin, crowds of beggars 
and tramps from the neighbouring valleys, — masses 
of human degradation and deformity of the most 
disgusting character,— were congregated about the 
kitchen door, clamorous for alms, while the monks 
were busy serving them with bread, cold meat, and 
wine. What they could not eat they carried away 
in baskets which they had brought for the purpose. 
Entering the chapel with our little offering, we 
were greatly struck with its magnificence, as con- 
trasted with the excessive plainness of the outside, 
and the sterility of the spot. It is considered a 
very sacred place, for it contains the relics of no 
less than three famous saints, viz. St. Bernard, St. 
Hyrenaeus, and St. Maurice, of the celebrated 
Theban legion of Christians. Five massive gilt 
altars stood in various parts of the chapel, while 
the walls were adorned with frescoes and several 
fine paintings and statues. The marble tomb of 
Desaix, representing him in relief, wounded and 
sinking from his horse into the arms of his aide, Le 



296 HO LI DA YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. 

Brim, was a conspicuous object. " I will give you 
the Alps for your monument," said Napoleon, with 
tears in his eyes, to his dying friend: "you shall 
rest on their loftiest inhabited point." The body of 
the general was carefully embalmed at Milan, and 
afterwards conveyed to the chapel, where it now 
reposes. A crowd of peasants, men and women, 
were kneeling, during our visit, in the body of the 
church, performing their devotions ; while three or 
four monks, dressed in splendid habiliments of 
crimson and gold, were chanting " the solemn 
melodies of a Gregorian mass," accompanied by 
the rich tones of a magnificent organ ; and clouds 
of fragrant incense rose slowly to the roof. 

Anxious to see the geographical bearings of the 
convent, we climbed up, with immense expenditure 
of breath and perspiration, a lofty precipitous peak 
close at hand. We had a most glorious view from 
the top, for the atmosphere was perfectly clear, and 
the remotest distances plainly visible. In front was 
" le Mont Blanc," as the inhabitants proudly call it, 
and at this distance of fifteen miles in a straight 
line it looked infinitely higher and grander than 
when seen from the nearer and more commonly 
visited points of view at Chamouni. Far up, miles 
seemingly, in the deep blue sky, rose the dazzling 
whiteness of its summit, completely dwarfing all 
the other peaks around it On our left was the 
enormously vast group of Monte Rosa, its ever- 
lasting snows tinged with the most delicate crimson 
hues of the rising sun ; while between them the 



vi.] MONT CHENALETTA. 297 

stupendous obelisk of the Matterhorn, by far the 
sharpest and sublimest of the peaks of Europe, 
stormed the sky, with a long grey cloud flying at 
its summit like a flag of defiance. Around these 
three giant mountains crowded a bewildering host 
of other summits, most of them above 13,000 feet 
high, with enormous glaciers streaming down their 
sides, and forming the sources of nearly all the 
great rivers of the Continent. My eye and soul 
turned away from this awful white realm of death, 
with relief, to the brown and green mountains of 
Italy, which just peered timidly, as it were, above 
that fearful horizon in the far south, with an inde- 
scribably soft, warm sky brooding over them, as if 
in sympathy. That little strip of mellow sky and 
naturally-coloured earth was the only bond in all 
the wide view that united me to the cosy, lowly 
world of my fellow-creatures. On this hill, com- 
posed of very friable schistose rock, I gathered a 
considerable number of very interesting plants 
peculiar to the Alps. The Arnica montana dis- 
played its large yellow composite flowers in the 
shady recesses of the rocks ; and, as if to illustrate 
the proverb that the antidote is ever beside the 
evil, I found its juicy stems very serviceable in 
healing a bruise on the leg which I got from a 
falling stone when gathering specimens. Another 
composite plant, the Chrysanthemum alpinum, 
whitened in thousands the slopes of debris. It has 
been observed, with Phyteuma panciflora, beside the 
Lys glacier on Monte Rosa, at 1 1,352 feet. Nothing 



298 HO LID A YS ON HIGH LANDS. [chap. 

could exceed the beauty and luxuriance of the 
patches of Linaria alpina, covered with a profusion 
of orange and purple labiate blossoms, which 
spread everywhere over the loose soil. No less 
striking were the sheets of forget-me-not-like 
flowers, blue as the sky itself, produced by the 
Eritrichium nanum, growing in the moist sunny 
fissures. At the base of the hill on the Italian side, 
where there was a slight tinge of grassy verdure, 
the yellow star of Bethlehem {Omithogalum fis- 
ttilosum) and the Nigritella angustifolia struggled 
into existence. The former rises an inch or two 
above the soil, and produces two or three bril- 
liantly-yellow flowers on each stem ; while the 
compact showy heads of deep blackish crimson 
flowers of the latter, springing from very short 
and very narrow leaves, diffuse a fine vanilla-like 
fragrance. At lower elevations they grow in great 
profusion, and form the finest ornaments of the 
Alpine pastures. Among the saxifrages which I 
observed growing more or less plentifully were the 
vS. androsacea (of which I could get no specimen 
perfect, for the marmot is so fond of it that it 
nibbles its stems, leaves, and flowers all round), 
the S. bryoides,Aizoon, biflora, ccesia, and muscoides. 
A short distance below the summit there were 
several large snow-wreaths. Their perpetual drip 
nourished a glowing little colony of the unrivalled 
Gentiana bavarica, and the compact sheets of the 
Androsace glacialis, sprinkled over with bright pink 
solitary flowers. In one place there was a curious 



vi.] ALPINE FLORA AND FAUNA. 299 

natural conservatory. The under surface of the 
snow having been melted by the warmth of the 
soil — which in Alpine regions is always markedly 
higher than that of the air — was not in contact 
with it. A snowy vault was thus formed, glazed 
on the top with thin plates of transparent ice ; and 
here grew a most lovely cushion of the A retia Hel- 
vetica, covered with hundreds of its delicate rosy 
flowers, like a miniature hydrangea blossom. The 
dark colour of the soil favoured the absorption of 
heat ; and, prisoned in its crystal cave, this little 
fairy grew and blossomed securely from the very 
heart of winter, the unfavourable circumstances 
around all seeming so many ministers of good, 
increasing its strength and enhancing its loveliness. 
Owing to the high temperature of the soil in the 
Alps, plants are enabled to thrive at great alti- 
tudes ; and even animal life is not unfrequent at 
a height of 10,000 feet. I observed at the foot of 
the snow-wreaths on this hill numerous burrows of 
a kind of mouse called Arvicola nivalis, which is 
also found on the top of the Faulhorn, Rothhorn, 
and on the Grands Mulets. Under the stones on 
the surface of the snow were lively masses of the 
small, black glacier flea (Desoria glacialis) ; while 
several specimens of that magnificent butterfly, 
the Pamassius Apollo, distinguished by its white 
almost transparent wings, marked with scarlet and 
black-ringed ocelli, sailed past with astonishing 
swiftness in the bright sunshine. These were very 
satisfactory representatives of the rich animal 



300 HOLIDA YS ON HIGH LANDS, [chap. vi. 

world we had left behind in the valleys. After 
a reasonable time spent in the enjoyment of all 
these treasures, we turned to depart. Hurriedly 
descending, with many a picturesque tumble and 
glissade, which did not improve the continuity 
of our clothing, we reached the foot of the hill 
in safety. Shortly afterwards we bade adieu to 
our hospitable entertainers with mingled feelings 
of gratification and regret : gratification, because 
we had seen so much that was new and interesting 
to us, and had been so kindly treated, though 
strangers in a strange land ; and regret, because 
the palmiest days of the Hospice are over, for the 
railway tunnel through Mont Cenis, which will soon 
be completed, will whirl away travellers direct into 
Italy, and few will care to turn aside, on a long 
and somewhat difficult journey, to visit the spot. 



THE END. 



BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. 

THIRD EDITION. 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

Price 6s. 

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

" Ably and eloquently written. It is a thoughtful book, and one 
that is prolific of thought." — Pall Mall Gazette. 

" It is an attempt to show, by a series of well-selected examples, 
how all nature, viewed in the light shed upon it by the last-lit lamps 
of science, sustains and upholds the general teaching, and in many 
■ cases even the special expressions, of Holy Writ. The miracles of 
Scripture are in this view but samples and condensations of the 
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wealth of instances and an easy flow of poetic language. Mr. Mac- 
millan writes extremely well, and has produced a book which may 
be fitly described as one of the happiest efforts for enlisting physical 
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"We part from Mr. Macmillan with exceeding gratitude. He 
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to voices of praise and messages of love that might otherwise 
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sense, and everybody must take pleasure in such talk of the world 
about us." — Examiner. ., 

" The whole work is so pleasant and suggestive that we are sure 
i it must do good to its readers." — Spectator. 



BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. 



" No mere extracts will do justice to such a book as this, marked 
as it is throughout by a singular variety, fulness, and aptitude of 
illustration, and showing the author's intimate acquaintance, not 
simply with the teachings of science, but with spiritual truth. . . . 
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equal." — Church and Stale Review. 

" The writing of the book is most striking, and in many places 
highly eloquent." — Literary Churchman. 

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intended, we regard the work as very valuable. The author has 
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" The descriptions are simple, beautiful, and real. A great deal 
of information in natural science and many interesting facts of 
natural history are embodied in them, and the moral and spiritual 
truths illustrated are for the most part suggested, they are never 
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more than pleasant reading. . . . With great heartiness we commend 
the book to our readers, as containing much information and poetic 
suggestion, imparted in a simple, clear, and attractive style." — 
Nonconform ist. 

" A work unrivalled for its unique and harmonious combination 
of science, poetry, and religion." — "Piccadilly Papers by a Peri- 
patetic : " London Society. 

" Throughout the entire book there is a keen appreciation of 
what is true in science, and the author possesses a mind well trained 
to patient research, and capable of investigating the most subtle ana- 
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"An earnest, thoughtful, graceful book, uniting the poetical with 
the divine, and lighting with holy, far-seeing fancy the beautiful and 
the useful as types, evidences, and promises of the wisdom and 
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marvels of science or the quibbles of philosophy. It is eloquent, too, 
as well as earnest, and none can rise from its perusal untouched by 
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OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



" The author of * First Forms of Vegetation ' has fortunately been 
encouraged to come forward again. He comes in the capacity for 
which he is eminently fitted, of a teacher whose chief design it is to 
lead his readers up from nature to nature's God. . . . An exquisite 
book." — Illustrated London News, 

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exactly like it in the language. Hervey was spiritual, but weak and 
tawdry ; Paley, philosophical, but cold : the author of the ' Bible 
Teachings in Nature ' is as positive and ardent in his piety as 
Hervey, and as philosophical as Paley, without his peculiar hard- 
ness. . . . No one who takes up this volume will find it so easy to 
lay it down." — Daily Review. 

" Two features of this work give it unusual claims upon the reader's 
attention. The first is the warmth and vivacity of its style, and the 
vivid and graphic character of its descriptions. Its scientific fidelity is 
a second marked characteristic of the work. Its author has cultivated 
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science, and the book bears the invaluable stamp of a mind which 
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tation. The volume is not only filled wiih agreeable reading, but 
is rich in instructive scientific exposition." — Dr. Youmans, in 
A T ew York Independent. 

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Sout/i American Missionary Magazine. 

" It is a collection of Biblical papers of remarkable freshness and 
interest. Mr. Macmillan possesses a rare gift both of insight and 
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natural science. The more obvious Bible symbols from nature 
acquire at his hands a fulness, point, and richness like that which the 
microscope gives to familiar objects ; while many that are obscure 
to the ordinary reader start from his touch flashing with light and 
beauty." — Professor Blaikie, in Sunday Magazine. 






LONDON : 

R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, 

BREAD STREET HILL. 



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